Fate-Dead Starlight
by Akallas von Aerok
Summary: The Turian Hierarchy's patrol fleet has encountered and launched a small subjugation fleet into unknown space after encountering a new spacefaring species. But instead of glory and triumph, all they met was an enemy too big for any race to handle, together or alone. Previously Fate Midnight Effect.
1. Chapter 1

**Disclaimer: I own nothing that has already been published. This makes me no money, and as such, outside of disclaimer of non-ownership, there is nothing to say.**

 **AU**

* * *

 **Fixed on 11/14/2015**

* * *

In the vast deep darkness that is space, stars shined. Their number and beauty in the infinite numbers belayed their terrible power and strength. Stars were not just beautiful twinkling jewels of the sky but power plants of the universe.

Nuclear fusion erupts from within its core, melting and burning all things that stand in their way. Even their massive size eventually dominates and twists time and space. With each second of their existence, even the weakest star spews out enough power to destroy worlds twice over.

Yet, such powerful things give birth to life. They radiate warmth and shape life in their embrace.

Rear Admiral Sventaros Nor'uru of the Turian Hierarchy thought so regarding the celestial bodies of the heavens. They were beautiful but oh so terrifying. He loved them, and served to protect those who would come to love the stars as he would.

It was his mission in life, just like any other turian.

He turned away from the obstacleless window to the one in front of the bridge of his command ship, _Renovatica_ a dreadnought in charge of patrolling the border of Batarian Hegemony and Citadel Council space.

And at the center of the window was a holoscreen that covered most of the viewport. Within it, the screen held a single image of a structure that made him contemplate once more about his life and mission.

A Mass Relay.

A structure of the bygone era before the time of the Citadel Council, it allowed spaceships to travel hundreds even thousands of lightyears in jaw-dropping short amount of time.

It was also the source of many conflicts.

Rachni War had been caused by the opening of one such Mass Relay. Death and destruction spewed forth from one such relay until the galaxy itself had been faltering and suffering.

He was not going to let anything like that happen again.

Exactly three hours ago, he had fired upon a small group of unknown ships seeking to activate the Mass Relay. Under normal circumstances, he would have liked to capture the ships and interrogate them before handing them over to the Citadel Council or the STG; after all, they were breaking one of the core laws of the Citadel Council by seeking to open up a Mass Relay without permission.

However, it was no ordinary circumstance. The ship design was different from any of the races known to Citadel Council. It was an enigma.

And enigmas always brought bad things with them.

Without hesitation, he had fired upon the unknowns, destroying them. However, he could not stop their last ship from activating and escaping through the relay.

He had called reinforcement, and they were all ready to jump through to the other side of the relay to subjugate any species or civilization that could prove harmful to Citadel Council.

He knew that his action would be denounced one way or another. Some among his own command were very uncomfortable with this.

But they understood. They stood by him as he made the calls.

They were willing to bare it with him if it meant that another Rachni War would not break out.

"Jump through now."

* * *

When they reached the other side, they were ... underwhelmed by the _lack_ of any technological defense. The experience was like an army of elite soldiers marching up to the enemy's capital expecting a mighty fortress made of mighty stoneworks, traps, and glory... but faced with nothing but a shabby town.

They felt slightly cheated.

The unsatisfied silence of the turian fleet reigned for less than a minute before orders were sent out. One half of the fleet moved into position to secure the system's mass relays while the other half moved towards what seemed to be a habitable planet with their troop transports.

"This is going to suck, isn't it?" rear admiral asked himself as he stared at the screen.

One of the analysts onboard stood next to him and cocked his head to the side. "It's strange. The ship design implied that this new species was fairly comfortable with intrastellar and are capable of building large orbital dockyards."

"What made you think that?" he asked of the analyst.

"Well sir, we have to consider their "wings." Our cruisers, for example, have little aerodynamics to them. This is because our cruisers are made in orbital docks and do not go down to the atmosphere for the planet. The new species' frigate-sized hull had similar build to our own cruisers."

Sventaros narrowed his eyes at the remark.

During the battle of Relay 314, the new species' "frigates" were able to dish out same amount of firepower as two of the Turian cruisers combined. Not only that, their main seemed to be omnidirectional from the four turrets attached to the ship. It was a mercy that their patrol fleet outnumbered the lawbreakers by a factor of 7, or otherwise defeat would have been a reality, not a probability.

"Third planet of the system had confirmed presence of civilization. Tier 4 and 5 technology is use."

Civilization Tiers were what patrol fleets used to determine if a newfound species could be contacted. Tier 1 was ... primitive. Hunters and gatherers primitive. Tier 2 was a farming civilization, just starting out. Tier 3 was given to those who had started their industrialization. Tier 4 was those who had gotten to use electricity, and tier 5 was given to civilizations that had any form of intra or interstellar travel technology. There were tiers beyond that with tier 10 being the hypothetical tier given to civilizations capable of intergalactic travel.

Space station that suddenly popped up on the screen was one such evidence of higher tiers.

"Dear spirits above," the analyst muttered as he saw the space station come into view. It was a massive structure. Shaped like bent armor plating, the station was estimated by the ship's computer to be at least 10 kilometers long. Painted in red and black, it was ominous thing standing between them and the planet. The thing was quarter of the Citadel!

"We're getting numerous contact!" the radar operator to the far left shouted as angry red dots began to swarm out of the station.

"Defensive formation! Launch the fighters! Fire all loaded torpedoes, take out as many of them before they get to us!"

"Enemy fighters are moving at 0.7 times speed of light. Melee estimated to break within 2 minutes!" the ship's VI commented.

Sventaros gawked.

That was ridiculous! They were still at least several aurals away from the planet!

"Enemy station is changing form!"

Everyone's attention on the bridge fell to the space station, which was still in the overhead.

"Confirmed," the VI said. "Structural changes marked at 0.001% overall structure. Estimated usage of changed structure: offensive weaponry... New change... Ssace station is moving. Calculating.

"Changing conclusion: enemy station is a ship."

That's when the screen lit up with two dozen white lights originating from the changed structures of the station/ship.

"Enemy ship has fired upon us!"

One of the frigate escorts to the right of _Renovaticus_ broke in half as something giant beamed by.

Correction, Sventaros thought as he stared in horror at the frigate in question. The left half of the frigate didn't exist. Finally, as if the ship had waited for eyes to witness its final breathe, it exploded.

" _THN Quelled Pirates_ , _THN Recorda_ , and _THN Yuporoso_ are all KIA with all of their hands!" an officer shouted even as their launched torpedoes met the enemy fighters and blew up, taking hundreds of the red fighters for each torpedo.

"PORT CONTACT!" one of the officer suddenly shouted.

On screen, it showed a ship coming out of what looked like a flat portal to deep darkness.

It was the same goddamn ship as the one far ahead of them ... except this was one was now so close them that they could almost touch it. "All ships focus fire on the enemy dreadnought to our port!" Sventaros roared even as his own dreadnought began to turn to aim its spinal cannon.

As soon as it left the portal, it began to more of those red fighters... except now that they were close enough to see the details, they did not seem anything like a fighter. They were too small and too-.

His ship shook.

"What just happened?"

"Those fighters are suicide bombers!" "They just tore through the entire section C! We're leaking atmosphere!"

"Fighters are using shaped shields and their own speed to tear through us," the analyst muttered even as his mandibles slacked. "They have _shaped_ shields. This is ridiculous."

* * *

The Turian Fleet pounded on the closer dreadnought. It attempted to escape after an hour of fighting, but one good dreadnought shot reduced its thrusters to molten slags, and it was beaten until it exploded.

That was when the second dreadnought had come.

Still tired and wary from their first fight with these monsters, the Turian Fleet retreated, but not before delivering their own special surprise.

They had the Mass Relay Fleet, which obviously did not need to be guarded if their travel methods said anything, and invaded Shanxi.

When the super dreadnought turned its back to the first fleet to help the Shanxi colony, that was when the turians struck.

Caught with its back turned, but not unguarded, the super dreadnought had been forced to retreat through the portal.

With the dreadnoughts gone, the Turian Fleets quickly merged and proceeded to invade Shanxi.

* * *

Turian dropships entered the atmosphere by the dozens, assured of their success. However, Rear Admiral Sventaros had warned them to be careful, but the fact that the planet had a clear lack of Anti-Air turrets to shoot them down eased their pumping hearts.

At least, it calmed Private Brucarius's heart.

"This is Alpha Troop Transport Group's leader WhiteClaw. Planet's only city is in sight. General orders are for our group to land east of this city. Find a clearing for us, boys, and let's get down to business."

The private felt the troop transport lurch as it moved to its starboard, accelerating to MACH 1. He held his rifle and placed his forehead on its long vertical shaft. As a green sniper, he had little to no experience in the battlefield until some of his superiors and fellows in the troop transport. He just hoped that whatever ordeal he faced, he'll be able to move through it without any trouble.

The transport shifted again.

"We're 2 minutes from landing, boys," the pilot of the transport spoke over the comm. "You got exactly thirty seconds to get out before I have to get back into the air. I wish you luck."

2 minutes...

The private prayed.

Let no harm come to him, or his fellows. They were only doing their job.

Let no innocents come to harm; they had not part in this conflict.

Let-

"ENEMY CONTACT IN OUR REAR!" the pilot suddenly shouted before the transport lurched. "Something's grabbing me! I can't shake it off-!"

 _PTTZZZZZZ_

Then he and the rest of the troops fell in a spiral.

The transport struck the ground and trees with thundering boom, and broke in half. Brucarius was in the back half of the transport, and he and his fellows in the back lurched forward as their portion of the transport continued to ram through the forest of this planet.

The other half blew up.

They were heading for a great tree.

"Alright boys!" the sergeant spoke over the comm. "Xeno's just got a hit on our transports everywhere! This only makes our job harder as more than half of the heavy artillery are gone! Once we hit that tree, we're gonna get the hell out of this scrap of metal and head to the rendezvous point!"

As soon as he finished the sentence, the private felt the entire transport (well half of it), strike the great tree. Instead of felling it, the troop transport bounced off of it like a ball and rolled in the forest floor for a bit before coming to a stop.

He summarily got out and threw up.

"I did not sign up for that..." he muttered slowly as he wiped his mandibles.

He slowly stood up, and looked around as others got out of the wreck. The forest itself was odd. As a turian who had much interest in biology, he knew that green was the best color for photosynthesis for both levo and dextro planets orbiting a yellow star, which was the color of this system's star.

But ... this forest? The leaves were whiter than the whites of their uniform and the bark was blacker than the night sky.

Biology here made no sense just by looking.

"Something's out there," someone muttered as he hefted his rifle up.

Everyone's attention fell towards the direction the marine was pointing his rifle towards. They too raised their own.

The bushes shivered around them.

The air grew colder.

"What the hell is going on?!" the sergeant shouted just as he popped out of the shuttle. "Why aren't you seven mo-"

There was a squawk.

Everyone snapped towards the sergeant, only to see a nightmare.

It was a long serpent with many legs. But each leg had one of the asari _hands_ on it.

And the face-!

It looked just like an asari. Was this place some kind of mad asari's experiment asylum? Was this where all of their advance technologies came out of?

The face smiled.

"WAGGGHHHHAAAAAAA~!" it screamed as it bit down on the sergeant's neck. Then with the twtiching dead body still in his mouth, it charged towards the rest of the marines with surprising speed.

"Fire!" he shouted.

All over the forest surrounding the city, the scene was duplicated. Felled transport, halved invasion force, and attack of the nightmarish odd monster.

Instead of a war, it had been a struggle for survival.

Endless waves of monsters, ground and air, struck at the turians.

Private Brucarius was now alone. He hid like a coward, but his instinct had brought him here to safety. He would not abandon it. He trembled as he heard the monsters pass by his position.

'What the fuck is this place?!' he mentally screamed and ranted. This place was a living nightmare. Turian blood painted everywhere he had ran to, and the corpses-.

Oh god, the dead.

It was a displace of macabre at its extreme. Broken armor and body parts were stacked like some kind of a puzzle with the severed heads serving as some kind of a fruit for the demented corpse tree.

He wanted to scream. He wanted to cry. Nothing made sense here. Just surviving was hard enough.

"Psst."

He slowly looked down.

There was another turian hiding in the bushes.

Brucarious almost smiled. Someone else was alive! There was someone else alive!

"What division are you from?" he asked quietly. "I'm from the 7th Artillery."

"13th i-infantry," the private stuttered, but he stuttered quietly at least.

"How many?"

The question was obvious. How many survived.

"None."

The turian nodded. "Let's get out of here. The end of the forest is only two kilometers to your right."

Private nodded and he jumped down.

"Let's go-"

Something caught him in a vice grip.

He turned around, and he screamed.

* * *

"What?!" Turian Councilor Sparatus gawked in shock as the turian on the other side of the comm line reported what had happened to the Turian fleet that had been sent to quell a new race.

"The fleet never got to blockading the planet for long," the officer on the other side of the call replied. "We lost four dreadnoughts, sixty cruisers, and a hundred frigates to mere two of their super dreadnoughts."

"Are you kidding me..." Sparatus muttered as he facepalmed.

"...No, we're not. The order from High Command is for you to gather the support of the Citadel Council to help the Hierarchy in this upcoming war, should it come down to that."

Sparatus turned off the call, and sighed.

What was he supposed to say?

* * *

Tevos was pissed. She had just returned from the latest Council meeting, and she had heard the stupidest thing.

She let a roar and unleashed a burst of powerful biotic that tore through all furnitures in her private room.

Alarms blared softly after that as the room darkened softly.

"Ma'am, are you alright?" the secretary outside the door asked hesitantly.

"I'm fine! Just turn this alarm off!" she shrieked in reply, then felt a little bad at screaming at the innocent girl.

The alarm stopped after a few minute.

She just plopped down on her silk sofa. "That idiot," she grumbled.

Turians in general were stupid as far as she was concerned. No, if she was honest with herself, they were more fanatic and that made them stupid. So zealous in their desire to do their "mission," -whatever each individual turian may see theirs- turians often tend to forget that there were consequences. If they ignored it, it was on their head.

Now though?

Normally, she would have left the Hierarchy to deal with the fall out. After all, nowhere on the Citadel Convention does it say that other members of the Citadel Council has to help an _aggressive_ member. In fact, there are mentions within the Convention that states that aggressive action against another race without just cause can have severe repercussion ranging from revoking colonization rights in certain sectors to loss of council seat.

Normally, she would have watched Turian Hierarchy suffer a little. It was about time they felt some sting of their action.

But this was not normal. A good tenth of the entire Turian Navy had been wiped out by two super dreadnoughts. She shuddered as she remembered the video she watched along with the other councilors. The sheer size of those monsters were enough to give her nightmares. On top of that, turians' own reports stated that such monsters did not need the Mass Relays. Instead, they opened up a "portal" in space to travel. She saw the video regarding that, and it scared her.

She was hesitant to think what kind of response the turian actions would wrought.

War would be somewhere on the top of the scale. Diplomatic repercussion would be close second, though much more preferred.

She let out a frustrated grunt.

Damn those turians.

She was scared. The sheer power of the super dreadnoughts were something to be wary of. Who was to say that they would not turn to the other races of the Citadel Council or even attack others to take over the Citadel itself? It was usually the case with the strong and the weak, civilized or not.

' _All are born. There is no evil or holy. There is only choice. Choice does not forge one's civility_ ,' she thought to herself from the scriptures of the Holy Book.

The speakers blared.

"Alert to all Council members! We have a spatial distortion 500 kilometers port of the Citadel! I repeat we have a spatial distortion-. Dear lords, what the hell is that?"

Tevos quickly opened her omnitool and contacted the Citadel Defense Fleet. "This is Councilor Tevos to _Destiny Ascension_. What do you see out there?" she asked. "I'm making my way to the command center in the Presidium. Until I get there, you'll have to tell me what's going on."

"It's a fleet, ma'am!" a frantic voice replied on the other side. "There's a dozen dreadnoughts-. What? They can't be that big! Do the calculations again!"

"What's going on?!"

"The dreadnoughts are all 10 kilometers long, ma'am," the captain of the Destiny Ascension, a Asari elder, replied calmly. "They are accompanied by a fleet of seven hundred thousand crusiers, from what our computers can tell. This looks more and more like an invasion fleet, ma'am. I suggest you and the other councilors flee the Citadel while you still can."

"If the Citadel falls, then -"

Tevos was cut off when a static broke out from _every_ single speaker in the Citadel. It cut off within a second, but soon followed by an unfamiliar voice.

"T-This is Private Brucarius of the Turian Hierarchy. Can anyone hear me?" a voice spoke hesitantly. There were other voices, languages that could not be understood, in the background. The lieutenant grunted before speaking. "M-My captors wish to talk with the highest ranking officials of both Turian Hierarchy and the Citadel Council. Please stand by."

Then an unfamiliar voice broke through, speaking in broken Crusova dialect of the Turian Crusova colony.

"This is Admiral F'thugan Queldora-Dolguran of the Terran League. I is coming to get reparation for the unjustified attack on your 'Relay 314' and invasion to our system Shanxi. Prepare diplomats."

Tevos groaned even as she urged her driver to speed up. This was going to be hell.

* * *

 _How right she was._

She and her colleagues sat in their seats in the public meeting room waiting for the Terran diplomat to arrive. They were each watching the said diplomat move through the Citadel through the security camera, and Tevos for one was very surprised by how much similarity the three diplomats shared with her race.

The one on the right was what she assumed to be a female, just like her race. Aside form skin tone and hair, they were practically identical.

The one on the right seemed less but nonetheless like an Asari. With him as base, she could imagine what a male Asari would look like...

But the two diplomats exuded what she could only think of as confidence. Especially the woman. She stood tall despite her short stature. She walked like the dignified kings and queens of old. This figure was more king than queen, despite her gender.

The man, on the other hand, stood tall because he was tall. He seemed to be offended by just about everything that was in the Citadel. Nevertheless, he too walked like a king. He walked slowly yet with distance. He looked down upon the crowd gathered to see them. Dressed in golden armor that shined much like his own hair,

Another fact that surprised the councilors was that of their hair. It was gold like the gold of jewelry. Were all of their races adorned with such beautiful hair or was it just them?

The last person in the terran diplomat team seemed to carry himself less, but he too was exquisite. His black hair, dark as the deepest void of space itself, swayed lightly about the side of his face with each step he took. He wore a flowing red and black robe over a white button-up shirt and silky dress pants. He was a contrast to the two king-like individuals in that he was humble. He greeted those who greeted him, unfamiliar or not. He did not scowl at them nor did he sneer. He smiled and thanked any individual who would talk to him.

No, he did not act like a batarian slave. Those slaves were broken. This man was anything but. It was subtle but Asari of her age knew power and status when she saw one. Just like the two royalties, this man carried himself not unlike a king going to greet another king or their subject.

A lord. Yes, that was the word to describe this man.

And they were now right in front of the entire council.

The black haired man stepped forward. "I would like to introduce ourselves to the Citadel Council," he began. "I am Otto Tohsaka-Bahk. I am the diplomat sent by the Terran League to hear what the Citadel Council has to say about the attack and invasion upon our worlds and systems. These two here are my ... guardians. They are here to ensure that my existence is not harmed in any way, unless it should come verbally."

Tevos was tempted to raise an eyebrow. That was a odd statement to add at the end.

She stood up, as it was traditional for the Asari to introduce the Citadel Councilors those they speak to. "I am Tevos, Councilor for the Asari Republics. The gentleman on my right is Valern, councilor for the Salarian Union, and the gentleman to my left is Sparatus, councilor for the Turian Hierarchy. May we ask how you have come to speak the turian language so fluently? Their sub-harmonics would make such thing hard for many race."

Almost immediately, the three terran diplomat looked to Sparatus, which was different from their curious but ultimately indifferent gazes that they gave to both her and Valern.

"Yes, we are familiar with the Turian Hierarchy. We had to interrogate and gather data regarding the language from very few prisoners we were able to retrieve. Our technology so far helps us with the speaking," Otto remarked as he turned to fully looked at Sparatus. "I do hope that the invasion fleet's action is something not of the norm?"

Sparatus narrowed his eyes. "Understand that one of our admiral became too zealous in his ... approach. I apologize for nothing more."

Otto scoffed, and it was clear to everyone who his disdain was being laid to. "Your arrogance speaks otherwise, councilor. We do not accept apology that is not meant."

"You would doubt my word as a councilor?"

Otto narrowed his eyes.

"As far as the Terran League is concerned, you and the Turian Hierarchy have been marked as hostile, non-negotiable xeno race."

Sparatus frowned. "There was no record of your kind attempting to make contact with mine."

Otto frowned as well. "Indeed? I was assure by my dear admiral that such was the case. The video showing our side of your ... invasion only supported it."

Valern decided to stick his head in now to prevent further escalation. "Perhaps that is why both events had occurred? A clear lack of communications?"

Otto seemed to ponder. "Our scientists, linguists, and military advisers have considered that, yes. It is also one of the few reasons why our fleet, which stands at your door, is not opening fire right now, and instead sent me for talks."

"Impudence!" Sparatus growled as he stood up. "You think you're better than us? You think you will leave unscathed after you fire upon this station?"

It was the male of the two terran bodyguard that scoffed. The sound had been unexpected, so to say, and everyone attention fell upon him.

He looked at the female counterpart, who was facepalming, and Otto, who was scowling. He didn't even look at the Citadel Councilors.

"What? I just thought it was funny," he spoke in fluent turian.

Sparatus growled. "A mere bodyguard has no place here to speak."

The golden haired man froze.

"'A mere bodyguard,' did you just call me?" he growled in return.

"Is that not what you are?"

The man's expression immediately twisted from annoyance into anger. "You dare call me a dog?!" he roared.

He merely roared with words, but to everyone else in the council room, the experience was quite different. They felt their bodies growing stiff, their pores opening up to sweat, and their heartbeats rising rapidly.

* * *

Sparatus remembered what facing this ... terran was like.

It was like fighting a Thresher Maw with nothing but a old model shotgun and a hand knife.

 _Fear._

It coiled around his body like a serpent yet it tightened around with power.

The terran's mere words had _power_ in them.

* * *

Valern frowned as he too experienced fear.

To him, as a Salarian, he felt as if he was faced with a problem that had little to no solution to. If there was a solution, it was unknown and out of reach from him.

But fear soon evaporated, replaced by a hungering desire to know how mere _words_ were able to cast veteran councilor like himself to recoil.

 _Most intriguing._

Caution was necessary when dealing with this man.

* * *

Perhaps it was Tevos who was struck the harshest by the roar.

She felt her insides coil in fear, wanting to run away far from the room as soon as possible and as far as possible.

 _Helpless._

What was this man?

* * *

Otto frowned. "We are in a delicate situation. Do not shout."

The golden haired man turned to Otto and glared. "You also do not have the right to speak down to me. Know your place!"

To the surprise of the councilors, it was Otto who apologized. "I did not mean to, sir. However, you lack the words and patience to see this through."

The golden haired man grunted and fell silent.

It was Sparatus, however, who would escalate things.

"And why would he find what I have stated to be ... funny?"

Tevos wanted to groan.

Otto sighed. "Truth to told, councilors... your fleets -really your civilization in general- ... are lacking."

Tevos flinched. Valern looked calm. Sparatus ... looked calm?

"Tell me, Diplomat Otto," Sparatus began. "I am curious as to you and your ... guardians," he used the word used by Otto to describe his bodyguards. "Qualifications that allowed yourselves to be here."

Otto Tohsaka-Bahk smiled. "Well, that is simple then. I have served the Terran League as a diplomat and liaison to two races who have joined us as allies. Before that, I served as a governor of Mars. Governor of Mars is one of the most prosperous positions one can be elected to office for, and I was happy to serve my people for fifty years. However who I am compares little to those behind me.

"The woman to your left is Her Highness King Arturia Pendragon, the High Protector of the British Isles.

"The man to your right is His Majesty King Gilgamesh of Uruk, the first king of all kings and the king of all heroes.

"Both of their Highness are what we call Counter Guardians."

But he did not provide any more information than that, Valern noted. Interesting.

"Your kings are your guardians, or are they here to make decisions?" Tevos asked. "In no history has a king come to a diplomatic meeting as a _secondary_ diplomat. It is just unthinkable."

Otto smiled. "No. While their Highness are indeed Kings, they are Counter Guardians. They are those who had been resurrected by Alaya, the subconscious will of all Humanity, the first race of the Terran League, to protect us. I must warn you. You should not mistake them for weak kings who sat upon their throne and commanded from a capital far away from battlefield. Their highnesses were chosen for this mission because due to their exceptional combat prowess. Should it come to blows, High King Gilgamesh alone can destroy this station as he sees fit."

Valern frowned. "What you suggest is impossible. Resurrection is impossible. Cloning is possible, but not resurrection. Are you sure you have the turian word for resurrection right?"

Gilgamesh frowned. "It's not like I wanted to be resurrected."

Otto quickly continued before the councilors could question the High King. "It is not true resurrection but rather avatars of the original, which resides somewhere only the Alaya -or those with preparations- can access. Both King Arturia and High King Gilgamesh are those who were taken from such place in their life. When humanity feels the need for protection as a whole, individuals such as their Highness are sent by Alaya to do its bidding."

"...What exactly is this Alaya?" Sparatus asked. "It sounds like a hive mind."

Otto shook his head. "It is exactly as I said, Councilor. Alaya is the subconscious will of _all_ humanity. No one man or woman can truly understand what Alaya is beyond that."

"...So where is this Alaya?" Tevos asked, prying for more information.

Otto considered it before he smiled. "In a magically powered dimension."

The councilors blinked.

* * *

The negotiations had quickly fallen out of control after that as the councilors mocked the Terran League for their belief in "magic" of all things. Otto had taken it in strides, just smiling, and stating that they were not the first to laugh, as their own race had laughed at magi, practitioner of magecraft, when such things were revealed to the public.

No one laughed after a war had broken out.

Calmly stating some of the facts that's quite widely known in Terran League, such as Heaven's Feel, repossessed by the Einzbern-Emiya Family, and Time Acceleration, claimed by Emiya Clan.

Valern was very surprised that "magecraft" allowed for local time acceleration, and asked for a demonstration of this "magecraft" or "magic."

Gilgamesh was happy to oblige when Otto asked him in return.

Tevos didn't think she would see "magic" in all of her life.

They hung there in the air. Golden ripples that seemed to defy reality. Then tips of bladed weaponry poked out, almost as if to threaten them. Then they quickly pulled back as Otto asked, and the diplomat himself demonstrated.

His body lit up as lines of greenish blue structures underneath his skin powered up. At first, Valern and she both thought they were just fancy bio-augmentations. They were quickly proved wrong when Otto _materialized_ a golden staff in his airs in thin air.

A solid gold staff that was not transparent nor illusion. Then he dispelled it, as if it never existed.

She had never seen Sparatus gawk as he did that moment.

Valern had gone into mental shock.

He called his magecraft "Tracing," which was a variation of Gradation Air. Tracing allowed one to reproduce the concept of creation, hypothesize the basic structure, duplicte material via magecraft, od, and prana, imitate skills of its making, synthesis its experience, reproduce accumulated years, and the finally excel all manufacturing process. Otto admitted, however, that he was not a warlock, a magus who excelled in combat, and that the only thing he had been able to Trace was the Staff of Fthugan Bahk, which allowed one to heal. He even offered to demonstrate, but only after the reparations to the invasion of Shanxi and unjustified attack on Relay 314 had been made.

The Citadel Council as a whole decided that reparations will be made in Citadel Credits as well as colonization rights.

Otto immediately refuted both forms of reparations by stating that Citadel Credit may be useful those within Citadel Space, but Terran League as a whole was not interested in joining.

Which brought all those involved in the negotation here...

"Why would you not join the Citadel Council, Otto Tohsaka-Bahk? We are the power of this galaxy," Tevos asked.

Otto smiled politely. "It may be so within your established space, but there are still many empty space for us to expand. We do not see a need for our Terran League to oblige to Citadel Council, its conventions, and its treaties when one of its member had just attacked us."

Sparatus admitted that it would indeed be off for the Terran League to join them after what had just occurred mere days ago.

"I also do not expect trade to occur between our two governments. From what we have gathered, studied, and recognized, our technologies are incompatible at best, explosive at the worst. This reduces your Citadel Credit values within our space to what your entire council is worth only in raw resources, which as an economist, I must point out raw resources do not amount to much compared to high-end manufactured goods."

"I'm sure that there is something you will want from us," Tevos argued. "After all, our larger possession over larger portion of the galaxy as well as our larger population, which I am here assuming that we are larger, allows us to produce more resource. For that alone, would you not trade with us? Your dreadnoughts alone must cost you a fortune."

"Such things will be up to the government to decide. I have only been told to not accept monetary sum as reparation. On that note, I must also argue against colonization rights. After all, you do not hold space over space where there is no Mass Relay, yes?" he asked.

Valern mentally frowned. Legally, that was the truth of the matter. Systems without Mass Relay were for the most part inaccessible. As such, the true sovereignty of Citadel Space laid only with systems with Mass Relays. Still, there were more than ten thousand relays spread through the galaxy.

"Of course, we will not be handing over systems with mass relays to you simply because of the mass relays, but we are willing to acknowledge your hold as one sovereign nation to another. However, I do not believe that my government will recognize your authority over non-settled, non-patrolled, and mass relay-less systems. As such colonization rights to such systems do not exist within your legal power as we won't recognize them."

"Then you must also realize from our standpoint, you will be illegally colonizing in what is rightfully our space," Tevos replied. "Not only that, systems you settle within what we consider our Citadel Space will allow you to launch raids and invasions that we cannot afford. For safety and security reasons, I cannot in good conscious let such things come to pass. It will only spark war."

Otto seemed to think on this for a while. "Very well. Our colonies shall avoid mid and inner rims of Citadel Space or anywhere within 100 lightyears of your homeworlds and strongholds. Is that satisfactory?"

The three councilors looked to each other before they nodded. "Yes," Valern spoke up.

"Good, then let's move on to reparations once more. From what our leaders have suggested, I am willing to propose these conditions of reparations.

"First, you will allow our magi investigators to visit your homeworlds 777 days each, our calendar.

"Second, the Turian Hierarchy will release the Volus from their protectorate status."

"WHAT?!" Sparatus shouted as he shot up from his seat. "That is unreasonable and unconnected to this!"

Otto glared at Sparatus. "Such will be what you will do unless you decide that this First Contact will become a full out war, dear Councilor. We demand this because this will limit your economy, and in return, limit your navy, which has cost this debacle to break out. Consider your Hierarchy at fault.

"And the third demand will be a signing of Treaty of Sentient Rights."

"And what does the treaty entail, Diplomat Otto?" Valern asked.

Otto pulled out a datapad from within the sleeves of his oriental robe. "The outline of the detail is on the first page, and the details are followed by it."

Valern was the one to walk down from the Councilors' seats to Otto and took the datapad. He read through it. "This is acceptable, but before we go on further ... I have question."

Otto looked at Valern, and nodded.

"Why did you show us about your 'magecraft?' If you had kept it a secret, then it would have been a huge advantage."

Otto smiled, but this was not polite but rather like ... a teacher?

"Magecraft and magic are both things that are widely known in our world. If you had even stepped once into our territory, then you would know. We use magecraft everyday in our lives ...ever since we were invaded four centuries ago."

"Invaded? By who?"

"They called themselves the People of the Stars. Highly intelligent and sturdy race of people. In fact, if there was a hybrid of you salarians and the turians, the sterians would fit the bill."

"Fit the bill?" Tevos asked.

"It's an expression. It means to fit a quality of something. Then, we were still confined to the inner portion of our solar system. The war they brought on forced our own technology and magecraft to excel in order to defend ourselves. But technology alone could not fight them off just as magecraft could not. So magi, the followers of the magus philosophy, broke their own code of conduct and contacted the rest of the world. It was there that arcanotechnology was born. Magecraft and technology united... Even then, there are feats that arcanotechnology or regular technology cannot replicate, especailly when it comes to True Magic," Otto explained. "The Terran League does not wish to put a restriction upon tourists and travelers. Perhaps you will join us seven months from now when I give a speech regarding magic and magecraft back on Gaia?" he smiled.

"We shall think about this invitation."

Otto nodded. "Now," he said, returning back to what Tevos recognized as the man's diplomat-self. "There are still reparations to be made."

* * *

In the end, Terran League had given up on forcing the Turian Hierarchy to release the Volus Protectorate. Instead, the Turian Hierarchy had been limited from patrolling non-settled, border systems close to Terran League territory. The Citadel Council did, however, sign the Treaty of Sentient Rights. When Citadel Convention was mentioned, Otto signed the ban on inter planetary biological and heavy yield nuclear weapon. Neither were necessary with arcanotechnology, and as such, it was no loss for the Terran League. After all, the same effects could be replicated.

Another treaty to be signed that day was the Mutual Non-Interference Pact as well as the Treaty of Member Interference. The first was just as its name suggested. Terran League and Citadel Council would not bother each other, but it also supported the sovereignty of Terran League as a separate political and military entity outside of Citadel Council. The latter was more tricky in that it allowed both sides to retaliate against one specific member on other side of the line who harmed them.

Otto explained the need for this treaty for the Terran League because they did not trust the Batarian Hegemony from what they have learned so far. Signing this treaty allowed Terran League to retaliate against the Batarian Hegemony should profound evidence of harmful actions are found.

But it would not be the Batarian Hegemony but the Terminus Alliance that would trigger the need of the treaty.


	2. Chapter 2

On their way back from the Citadel towards the Alpha Response Fleet, Gilgamesh was staring at Otto Tohsaka-Bahk with amused expression.

Arturia did not seemed to care.

Others in the shuttle?

They were scared as fuck.

To their left was Gilgamesh, the strongest of all Counter Guardians and Heroic Spirits. Bested only once in all of his life and afterlife, he was the ultimate being in this shuttle. When such ... things... were amused, events rarely moved calmly.

To their right was Otto Tohsaka-Bahk, the infamous holder of Heaven's Feel. Using the Third Magic, he supplied himself almost unlimited power, and used it to produce massive raw prana crystals. Slowly, they were taking over the energy market as even a small quartz was capable of powering a motorcycle for months.

And the man made literal mountains of them.

He was the political and financial power of the Terran League, the man behind the curtain. Such a man was just typing away at his holopad, but the speed at which he was going through them was also another evidence of his physical prowess; no soldier onboard could even pretend to know what they were seeing. For all they know, it could be 1's and 0's of a software program.

And then there was Arturia Pendragon. Not only was she a legend, she also possessed one of the physically strongest human alive.

The three big powers' presences alone was alarming to the soldiers.

Otto, on the other hand, just scoffed as he thought about the man in front of him.

Gilgamesh, the King of Uruk and the King of Heroes. The first legend. The possessor of all treasures of humanity.

And also a Heroic Spirit as well as a Counter Guardian.

"There is a question," Otto stated.

Gilgamesh shrugged. "I am curious, yes."

"I suppose this is about my ... lack of restraint?"

Gilgamesh shrugged once more. "Perhaps. You do realize that such action will earn the ire of ... many. Yet, you did this. I would like to know why."

Otto crossed his arms. "Terran League as you know it has multiple contacts with outside powers. Some are intergalactic. Some are interstellar. Some are neither. As far as I and the Committee deem it, this ... Citadel Council ranks as a lower variable even among interstellar powers. Their technology is obviously not their own. The comparison between the designs of their ships and the Mass Relays are too different. Shapes may be for some, but the overall efficiency in their use of this new element, Element Zero, and the quality of the metals used in such constructions leaves much doubt that they had developed this technology themselves.

"In fact, I would not be surprised if they took this technology from a bygone civilization. This, along with the fact that they have yet to even reach the space between their shorter relays, has only cemented the fact that they are not financially or technologically advanced enough to match our own power, not by a long shot."

Gilgamesh narrowed his eyes.

"I see. So all of you peasants are worried about the power to our west..."

Otto didn't frown nor did Arturia at the remark, having been around the proud king for too long to even notice it. "Yes. However, I do expect some of the troublesome elements of their society attempt to make trouble with us."

Arturia opened her eyes.

"You are expecting a war."

Otto nodded. "To a degree. It can be something as low as pirate extermination, but we will eventually clash."

Arturia closed her eyes once more.

Gilgamesh laughed. "Let them try. They are no more thieves than your kind. You will crush them as you always do."

"Umm, you? You won't fight?"

Their attention fell on one dumb private.

"Sir?" he added hastily.

Gilgamesh let it go with a scoff. "I have no need to grace the filthy peasants with my weaponry. The Faker can do that himself."

Otto frowned.

EMIYA and Gilgamesh were always at odds with each other ever since the Awakening. Gilgamesh would call the Counter Guardian a Faker, which was true but nonetheless derogatory, and EMIYA called the King of Heroes a weak warrior.

Not many were privy to the struggles the two had with each other prior to the Awakening. Those few who did have an idea kept a tight seal on their lips -often times by job description- and refused to divulge. As such, instead of truths, there were only rumors perpetrated regarding the two. It ranged from harmless prank that went wrong to life-to-death rivalry as the only two Heroic Spirit/Counter Guardians to frequently use hundreds of Noble Phantasms.

Iskander the King of Conquerors was rumored to be in the same league as them, but when met individually without each other, EMIYA and Gilgamesh have only been too cordial with the King of Conquerors to be considered rival to either. So everyone wondered just about what it was between them that created such a heated conflict. , even Otto.

Still, Gilgamesh acknowledged Faker of his strength, and even announced that EMIYA was a warrior.

EMIYA, for some reason, looked smug about that.

Regardless, Gilgamesh still showed disdain for the Counter Guardian, and "allowed" him to deal with what he called the "pest control." EMIYA was only too happy to oblige as long as there were lives to be saved.

Arturia, on the other hand, did not approve of Gilgamesh's remarks.

The King of Knights was also another matter involved in the politics of Heroic Spirits and Counter Guardians. Many mocked her, especially Iskander and Gilgamesh, and at the same time, those who mocked her respected her. Her opinion was still highly valued because of such respect, but held no true sway.

She was a master swordswoman, and everyone acknowledged her prowess.

Even Gilgamesh.

Which is when Arturia opened her eyes once more and glared at Gilgamesh, he looked like someone told him off rudely. She glared at him for a minute before she closed her eyes once more.

"We can talk once we go back. The others will be waiting."

* * *

While the diplomat and his two guardians were leaving the Citadel, the councilors were very shocked by the revelation of this new power, and each were troubled by the implications such revelation brings.

Sparatus realized almost as soon as the golden haired human man had yelled that there was something about this new race that should not be triggered. While it seemed inferior to a biotic, the roar of the man had indeed shaken him as if he was being hunted by a predator. On top of that, he saw that this new power were not like many of the other races who would have been happy -most of the time- to join Citadel Council as a member race. These humans were not happy about such prospect when Tevos brought it up, and almost immediately refused it.

The turian councilor was worried about the clash Citadel and these Terrans were going to meet in and the ultimate result of such a clash. Would the turians lose? Highly likely; even if the number of dreadnoughts that the Terrans had brought today had been all of their dreadnoughts, the sheer power each of them contained were worth 5 or more of the turian dreadnoughts. By such comparison, the turians, the guardians of the galaxy, were ... outgunned.

The Treaty of Faraxian set aside, the sheer economy needed to support a fleet that could even stand on same footing as the Terran fleet was outside of their current reach... The Terrans, especially after what the Turians had done, were unlikely to give up their fleet in any way.

Of course, he and the other two councilors had asked, but the human diplomat went back to his point of Citadel Council speaking too well of its own status (entire Citadel territory was sponge with no means of real protection should those holes be used against them).

Tevos cursed herself for correctly guessing how today was going to end. The new race had barged into Citadel space with its fleet. Demanded reparations the Council had to concede to.

She had to admit, however, that their demands of reparations were milder than what she had guessed up on the spot, especially not after they had logically argued with valid point that the terrans did not use the same interstellar technology as the member races of Citadel Council. The colonization rights, which she had been sure they would bring up, had been brought up and thrown aside as if it was no real deal. From their standpoint, Tevos had to agree, even if she did not voice it. As far as the Terrans were concerned, the territory of the Citadel Council was only connected to the mass relays. Beyond that, they simply did not have the technology to expand. The systems that lay between the relays were free for anyone to take. After all, no Citadel members had claimed them, and now there was another power with the means to get to such places. Citadel and its members could not impose their will on systems that they did not have access to, also.

She and the other two had tried to argue against the terrans, but once the new race had begun to plow through what was common sense only hours ago, there was no stopping.

So she had done her best to mitigate any harmful effects that the Council -and her Republics- would have been affected as a whole.

One such mitigation had involved the Citadel Council acknowledging the existence of the Terran League as well as providing protections against any tourists into their systems for the next ten years. Another concession for not going to war over turian's slight upon the terrans was to allow investigators upon Asari homeworld to study the natural life.

Valern had made similar concessions, and was curious of it . Not only did these terrans -or humans, whichever- not take any territory or monetary gain from this, they were only investigating the _natural wildlife_ of their homeworlds. It was strange. He guessed that perhaps their investigations had something to do with their magic.

So, unlike his other colleagues who were too worried about their job and security to ask, he asked.

They replied rather easily.

"All celestial bodies are alive. They may end up dead, but all are alive as they are born. Celestial bodies that give birth to life are great, and as such, we wish to study your planets."

Sparatus looked very confused. Tevos seemed to understand their "religion" a bit, but Valern saw it for what it was.

They were studying potential magic of other species. Homeworlds, as the terrans had implied, were where their magic had developed. This meant that allowing such investigators upon their homeworlds could have disastrous consequences like revealing many weaknesses that even the members themselves had not known about.

He and the Union were lucky in that regard. The diplomat looked at him intensely for a few seconds, which involved his eyes glowing during that time, and told him that Salarians that he had observed so far had no capability of using magecraft or magic.

Which implied that Asari and Turians had unknown unknown capability to use magecraft and magic, but unknown as to how well or how much.

It made Valern sad. Something that he could have studied had just escaped through his fingers, and he would never feel anything like magecraft "casted" by his own hands. Only biotics, which already had Asari as its top user.

Valern frowned.

Science, as it seemed, would always remain salarian's best tool.

* * *

Once Diploat Otto Tohsaka-Bahk arrived on the _TNS Harbinger_ , the flagship of the Reparation Fleet, he and the two Heroic Spirits were quickly escorted to the main meeting room, where there were four others waiting them.

One of them was the captain of TNS Harbinger, Admiral Ga-Il Suhn, or Gator as he had those under him and his friends call him. He was a tall Asian-descent man with muscles bulging out of his military uniform. He had a scar running across his forehead and ending at his jaw. It was a gruesome scar that only told horror and pain the admiral must have managed through.

The second person, who was sitting down right next to the admiral, was a man dressed in white robes and a crown. He was of elderly age, and his body showed. Despite his advanced age, his eyes still shone with vigor and power found only in those of youth.

This was the current head of the von Einzbern family, the son of Ilyasviel von Einzbern, and a duke.

This man was also the grandfather of Otto Tohsaka-Bahk.

 _Ilmensvies von Einzbern_  
 _Duke of Northern Star Archipelago_  
 _Head of von Einzbern Family_

Otto cringed when he saw him. "...Hi."

The wizened old man glared at him. "Stop standing there and sit down already. I do not have much time."

Otto chuckled. His grandfather's favorite phrase was exactly that 'I do not have much time.' But everyone who knew his grandfather, which was almost everyone, the man was in possession of two things: the third true magic Heaven's Feel and the Noble Phantasm Fountain of Youth. These two allowed the man to live as long as he had, along with his children. He had passed down the true magic to his children, but so far, kept his Noble Phantasm to himself.

He had gained much power and wealth at the starting age of humanity's expansion into the stars. He used those powers to "reserve" a set of stars and their planets. He named them the Northern Star Archipelago, because they were directly above Earth in terms of location and consisted of 30 or so closely grouped stars. It was there that he built a dukedom matching the might of Earth before the merging of all human states into the Terran League.

The merging was 200 years ago.

Besides those achievements, Ilmen was a bit of a scholar and scientist. He had researched into other celestial bodies, their relationship with human magic. magecraft, and mysteries. He published his findings in Magic of the Universe.

The said textbook is the central pillar of a new field of arcanotechnology and magecraft called xenopranaterrestialogy.

It was he who found out how to communicate with planets directly as a human. It was he who brought peace between planets and humans. It was he who became the pillar upon which many new fields of mysteries were being discovered.

He was the single most influential man in the moonlit world.

So why was such an important man here?

Because he felt like it. He was that kind of an eccentric man.

The third person was Ilmensvies' personal guard. He was tall, almost as tall as the admiral, shorter by only an inch. Unlike the muscle bound admiral, this man was lean and thin, almost skeletal, one could say. His features were covered with a mask that allowed only two holes for eyes. He had a belt around his waist with three holstered revolvers and three rifles swung over his shoulder. A man trained under Ilmensvies himself, this bodyguard was famous throughout the entirety of Terran League as the Spell Breaker.

"Young master," the bodyguard bowed slightly.

Otto nodded. "It's good to see you again."

The last person was a young woman with blonde hair and white eyes. Her peach skin showed numerous tattoos and they all ended up at her neck in a circle where a man's adam's apple would have been.

This woman was the latest of the addition to the growing list of Heroic Spirits, the King of Rebels.

Ever since her Awakening, she had placed herself under the authority of Ilmensvies von Einzbern, allowing him to "possess" a heroic spirit whose noble phantasm was capable of producing B+ rank weapons en masse, only second to Gilgamesh's number and diversity.

"So the arrogant child king returns."

It was her favorite taunt to the King of Heroes.

"And the stupid leader of beggars bark."

He returned it with his own taunt, but neither looked annoyed nor angry. They had been through this too long and too many times to be so.

"Let's not get caught up in memories," Ilmensvies spoke up. "We are here to discuss these races using the Reaper's Citadel."

And the so meeting that would decide humanity's action against the Citadel Council and its members as a whole begun.

* * *

On the other side of Terran League's galactic borders, there were other Heroic Spirits standing up to protect and warn those who would seek humanity and all children of Gaia harm.

Unlike the rest of the galaxy, the Orion arm largely lacked mass relays. The total number of relays within the said arm was within twenty. This was because there had been another civilization at the time of the relays' construction.

The Road Builders. Ancients. The Alterans.

They were technologically superior in every way compared to the Reapers. Their weapons alone pierced through Reaper dreadnoughts with ease. Their shields protected them from Reaper orbital strikes with only a scratch to show for the Reapers' efforts.

Eventually, the Reapers had retreated, and the Alterans, fearing that the Reapers may return, left behind many pillars written in their language to warn others of the Reapers.

Reapers, on the other hand, were intimidated by the Alterans. The Alterans were of extra-galactical origin. They were a variable that could not be factored in; their mere existence and their technology introduced too many new variables. So like the Alterans, they did their own preparations; they removed almost all relays they had built in the Orion arm.

However, this had led to rise of civilizations that lived past the average lifespan of its neighboring arms and the rest of the galaxy.

Indeed. The oldest of these civilizations actually rose to power immediately after the extinction of Alterans.

 _The Protoss_

At 4.6 billions years old, they were alive and thriving when Earth was nothing but space dust. However, they had their own crisis every now and then. And then the latest crisis of their recorded history struck around 10,000 years ago, reducing their total population by 99% and drastically changing their physique.

Even then, they were 50 billion strong.

Now, they were climbing out of the ashes of their fallen empire, and had met the humans.

War broke out almost immediately when human slavers from the uncontrolled region of space struck and enslaved thousands of Protoss. The strongest of the Protoss interstellar empires at the time, Azul Theocracy, had demanded the Terran League to cooperate with them in search and rescue, as it was their brethren that struck at the Protoss.

However, Terran League had been having their own issues.

Or rather, one issue.

The Awakening.

It was the most significant event that had happened to humans for one reason: the resurrection of Heroic Spirits. By unknown means, Alaya, the collective will of humanity had unleashed all of its Heroic Spirits and Counter Guardians from past to present in one go, using its own conceptual existence to power a connection to Akasha itself, the metaphysical plane of existence that stores all information, past, present, and future. With it, it sacrificed whatever sentience it had managed to create, and in its stead left all of the Heroic Spirits spread throughout Terran territory.

It was time of chaos.

Heroic Spirits were by nature very volatile beings. The majority of them did whatever they wished, for they did not need to fear death; death was no longer possible for the likes of them with the Awakening powering their existence using true magic. Should they die, they were going to resurrect somewhere else in Terran territory, and they all woke up with this knowledge implanted.

Humanity was in essence plunged into war with itself.

And the Protoss had demanded of humanity cooperation when none could be spared nor given.

This had angered the Protoss, and it did not help that the proud Terrans of the time had prevented information leaks.

It led to the First Protoss-Terran War. That one had ended rather fast as it caused a reaction within all Heroic Spirits.

Programmed and sent down, they had been given several advantages that no normal human had. First, they could not die permanently. This, the heroic spirits knew upon their awakening.

The second was that when a threat that could endanger humanity as a whole had emerged, they could not help but fight them.

As stated before, it ended fast. The Protoss were unfamiliar with magecraft, or even magic, and they fell by the droves. The First Protoss-Human War had ended in overwhelming victory for the humans. With victory, Protoss's strongest nation had been split into tiny fragments, never to regain the power they once held.

And all of humanity let out a deep sigh of relief from what was their first contact war.

However, war was never far away. While their single strongest nation had been destroyed, the rest of the Protoss remained. They studied human magic and created their own. They formed a coalition that amassed the rest of the Protoss military together.

And fifty years later, the Second Protoss-Human broke out over a "terrorist" attack.

'And today is the seventh year since then...' EMIYA thought as he stood on a barren world.

 _This planet, once a pristine grassland steppes, was now nothing more than a barren wasteland from the torture the planet had to endure at the hands of both humans and protoss. The life of the planet had been killed off very early in the war by von Einzberns to power themselves. Having been a protoss planet at the time, no one made fuss over what was very close to sacrilege. To kill a planet was a crime that exceeded a crime against humanity. It was a crime exceeded moral._

 _It was not a crime but destruction of law and order of the universe._

 _And in its dying wrath, the planet had done just that._

 _With its dying breath, it created a monster whose power exceeded mortal comprehension._

 _He, Gilgamesh, Heracles, and few other Heroic Spirits had been called in to deal with it after it had slaughtered all human and protoss on the surface of its dead mother._

It was hell.

 _When they arrived, they found it standing on top of a mountain of corpses. Holding the image of a protoss-human hybrid child, it was an eerie scene, especially since the girl was covered in the blood of both races._

 _"Are you here to desecrate my mother too?" it had asked._

 _"No. We fight because it is what we do," Heracles had replied. "Because you are a threat to humanity."_

 _EMIYA scowled._

 _The fight had not been an easy one._

 _The monster had targeted both he and Gilgamesh first, and Gilgamesh had 'died.' It broke through every single defensive Noble Phantasms that Gilgamesh was able to pull out of his Gate of Babylon, tore the King of Heroes in two. However, in its hurry to kill the biggest threat, it had taken on its own damage from the Broken Phantasms, Gilgamesh's last gift to the battlefield._

 _An explosion rivaling nuclear weaponry tore through the land, but the rest of the Heroic Spirits were able to escape._

 _And the monster walked out of the chaos with only a mangled left hand._

 _That had been some shock._

 _It was apparent in that moment that this monster had exchanged most of its defensive, speed, and skill for outright power._

EMIYA frowned as he observed the protoss forces landing from the mountain top he was standing on.

It was quick after that. The strike of all of the Heroic Spirits launched at once was too powerful for its reduced defense to hold, and it died while standing.

He did not feel remorse for what he had done that day, despite how the monster had looked like.

After all, it was either us or them. He did, however, leave behind a small conjured flower for a soul no older than a week.

And once the "threat" had been cleared, both humans and protoss were back on this planet in an effort to occupy it.

But why, one might ask, occupy a planet that is nothing but a dry desert?

Because this planet stood right at the border between the Terran League and the Protoss Defensive Coalition with no neighboring star for 100 lightyears. With their current technology, neither the protoss nor the human were able to cross that big of a distance in any militarily reasonable time. It was a strategic point in space what would allow either side to pour their troops through the rest of its enemy's territory without a significant burden of logistics.

And so, the two sides fought tooth and nail for this single planet.

EMIYA looked up. In orbit, the two navies were in constant battle over small area of the orbit. Lights flashed here and there in the skies as mighty warships fell apart with a violent explosion.

And someone was approaching.

He looked back down just as the person he had anticipated came up right next to him.

"EMIYA, I need that report."

There was a bit of silence before the white-haired man spoke. "Heavy artillery and orbital strike shielding units, 100 and 35 units each. I suspect they intend to make a makeshift fortress where they are landing. Troop numbers are counting up at 50,000. I also spotted a hundred villains, Mordred."

Mordred Pendragon. The "son" of Arturia Pendragon, and one of the Heroic Spirit commanders on this wretched planet. She wore the armor and the sword of her legend. And she considered herself the rival of EMIYA for the attention of Arturia Pendragon.

However, as far as she was concerned at the moment, it was those damnable villains.

Villain was the nickname for the Heroic Spirits -or whatever their equivalent- of the protoss. Unlike humanity, who had higher, larger, and deeper access to all things magic, the protoss lacked magic circuit in most of their population -as opposed to humanity's 67%.

In exchange for quality, they had gone for quantity. With their larger population and larger volunteer pool, they had selected individuals capable of holding large quantity of prana.

And injected them with enough of it to match Caladbolg II one for one.

Whenever there was a Heroic Spirit, the protoss would send a dozen of villains as response. Why? It was worth it. While Heroic Spirits may not die, they still had a period that took them to be reborn and shipped back to the front. Also, not all villains died in the battle. Some managed to survive, and grew stronger. The strongest villain that the protoss possessed in their arsenal was actually strong enough to fight Heracles one on one.

EMIYA projected his bow and three Caladbolg II's.

Mordred looked at him for a second before nodding. "I'll have the others hunt down the mind feeders."

With that, he fired all three of them.

The three twisted arrows shot across the distance in a blue arc, reaching their target together under a second.

The protoss troops who were still setting up their shielding units ripped apart as a magic nuclear bomb went off from within their ranks. A red dome of swirling destruction roared out in the barren wasteland. The protoss transports in the air swerved to avoid the destruction that sought them. Those high in the atmosphere merely jerked while those close to ground died along side their brothers and sisters.

Then it disappeared in feather-like fragments, leaving behind only another crater among money.

But even in such a destruction, there were survivors.

The Immortals, successors of the imfamous Dragoons, walked out of the pit of corpses of their brothers. Their singed forms creeked as they walked, showing that even the most advanced of the protoss hardened shield lacked defense against the Heroic Spirits.

That was when the Villains came out.

Their number had taken a toll, being reduced to six dozen from a hundred strong.

Mordred scoffed. "You softened them too much for us," she spoke as her headgear, the only modern gear concession she had made, zoomed in on the decimated protoss force. She saw how some of the villains were going to die even if she and the other Heroic Spirits fight them head on.

But it was to her surprise that one of the immortals had saved two shielding units in exchange for its pilot's cockpit and life.

"Fucking hell!" she roared as she watched the villains hurry to it and activate it. "Kill those fuckers, EMIYA! If that unit goes up, we're in for a long fight!"

EMIYA didn't need to be told. His sharp eyes had seen the shielding units as well. By the time she called his name, his bow had been drawn, and by the time she had finished her sentence, he had fired.

A impromptu Caladbolg II soar across towards its destination, only to be met by blue hexagon-patterned shield.

Mordred roared in anger behind him.

Fortress Shielder. It was a new battlefield concept developed by the protoss. Instead of just giving each of their soldiers and artillery shield that would fizzle out under the pressure of number, the Fortress Shielder, once placed and activated on a flat terrain, set up a light blue dome. From within, anyone could fire outward. From outside, any launched projectile or fired energy weaponry were tossed aside. Within it, all protoss individual shields received a huge boost to their recharge rate, making a soldier that was already worth three marines capable of fighting another ten.

EMIYA che'ed even as he nocked another three Caladbolg II's.

"Caladbolg!" he shouted as he unleashed their full power upon the protoss.

Just as the second shielding unit went up.

No damage.

"Guess we're going down there to fight them seriously after all," she remarked as she turned around. "Alright, you lot! You know the drill! Let's kill those 'toss fuckers!"

EMIYA turned around and looked.

There were four heroic spirits he was unfamiliar with here. Behind those spirits were hundreds of marines and firebats, ready to dish out their anger upon the protoss. He watched the Siege Tank set itself up in the back. From here, the protoss would not be able to take it out while the tank could fire rounds after rounds of artillery shells.

"We fight!" the marines roared.

Mordred's grin became predatory. "WE FIGHT!"

And they charged.


	3. Chapter 3

**Hello guys, and welcome to Midnight.**

 **Now, I'd like to thank you guys for the supports you have provided me.**

 **There have been some question regarding the way this fiction was heading, and I'd like to address them.**

* * *

 **Review Responses!  
It's a good idea to read them.**

 **First off, yes, this is a crossover. between fate/stay night and Mass Effect. But Starcraft is also part of the story due toe protoss being one of the races that humans encounter. I added Protoss for a single purpose; a race capable of fighting the Terran League in the same league as them.**

 **So one guy talked to me about grammar regarding the capitalizing race names.  
I ain't gonna for several reason. One being that ... we don't capitalize human. "Hey, those Humans..." yeah, you probably never saw them before. I don't see a reason to capitalize krogan, turian, asari, salarian, protoss, and so on. It's just ... double standard, kind of.**

* * *

Mordin was excited to be honest. He had been selected as one of the twenty scientists and philosophers to participate in the exchange program to visit and learn from the Terran League. He had seen some videos about the capabilities of the Terran League. Their technology that allowed them to create literal warp fields was in and of itself fascinating. To bend space as the terrans do would be an achievement for the whole of Citadel races. Mordin knew, however, that with mass effect, this would be not possible for some time. Perhaps it was because of this there was this exchange program.

The Terran League had already sent their representatives to study the Council planets already, including those of the member races of the Citadel Council. It had been part of the reparations to allow them to study the planet as they please under condition that no damages were done to the populace and the planet.

When Mordin saw the human researchers come down to his homeworld, he had been shocked to say the least, and interested him very much. To start off, the ship responsible for the researchers' protection had been a single dreadnought with two fighter bays, one on each side of the gigantic ship. Just like the reports and videos leaked from the turians, the dreadnought was indeed in the shape of a bent armor. Or to be more specific, the ship seemed to be designed with providing as much area as possible in a triangular pyramidal shape. From what the STG's cameras have been able to zoom and take note of was the detail. On the surface of the dreadnought armor were inscription of some kind, most of them in circles. What these were for, STG have yet been able to determine.

Overall, though, their design was opposite of those put into issue by the Citadel races, who preferred to give the enemy as least amount of volume to give target to.

Some salarians and many other race members had thought this to be an error on the part of the Terran League, but Mordin thought otherwise.

Those red "suicidal" fighter were not fighters but drones, like the ones employed by the Quarians before their fall. The videos were clear in what they did, but it baffled those researchers looking at the video.

For example, the shields of the turian invasion fleet were up by the time Terran League's own dreadnoughts had arrived at the scene. Yet when the terran missile drones had come in, they tore through the shields as if they were nothing.

Mordin had suggested this to the STG Board of Weapon Research.

What if those missiles were equipped with shield dampeners? Or what if just before the missiles struck the shield, they boosted their acceleration? After all, the weight of the projectiles used by the Council starships could not compare to the weight of the missiles. If a bullet weighing a kilogram shoots at one hundredth of the speed of light, how does it compare to half-ton missile that -just before the hit on the shield- accelerates to a hundredth of the pebble's speed? The missile would do much more damage by magnitudes more.

Still more shocking had been their transports. Although shaped much like any of the other races' personnel transport, it did not have an exhaust, no mass effect core, and no hologram for steering. It had been strange experience just to see something that didn't seem like it could fly ... fly.

Perhaps it was a lesson for Mordin himself and many others to never dismiss anything.

So here he sat in one of the terran dreadnoughts. There were others like he who were excited, but some were wary. But he did not care too much about either groups. He was busy just ... observing the structure around them.

Having been escorted to the fighter bay area, Mordin had noticed something off. It was nagging at him, but he could not touch upon what exactly it was that was bothering him.

The fighter bay had been cleared of any and all fighters and ... technologically sensitive equipments before their arrival, which meant he could not study any of those. So he had to study the terrans who were waiting to greet the exchange party.

And my ... was he in for a shock.

Terrans were so .. diverse! There were black terrnas, pale terrnas, peachy terrans, grey terrans, green terrans, and brown terrans! He had not suspected anything like this. The terrans must have been very genetically diverse!

He had approached them and asked them about it. He had approached a white haired one -other terrans were shocked by his approach. The white haired one, who seemed to be an elder as well, chuckled and pointed out that some of the humans were altered at birth. Mordin had asked if there had been any adversion within Terran League at the prospect of such genetic modification, as it was a law within Citadel space to not perform such deeds. The old terran had responded with a simple wisdom.

"If what you do makes valuable enough, people don't make too big of a fuss."

Indeed, history had taught Mordin as such. So he went on to discuss with the old terran.

The others of the exchange party, after he had started a conversation with the terrans, had done their own investigation as well.

And then one of them had made shocked noise. A turian researcher.

What had shocked the turian?

Why, he had asked why the inside seemed to be bigger than the outside. Apparently, the turian in question had very sharp eyes and a good sense of spatial orientation. He had estimated that the fighter bay was at least 20 cubic kilometer in volume at 100 meters in length, but such measurement could not be true as the longest tip to tip length of the dreadnought was less than 150 at its widest, and that was not even where the fighter bay was!

The old terran had chuckled.

"Because our ships are bigger on the inside."

Which led to many of the exchange party to have a glazed stare after it was confirmed that the terran dreadnoughts were indeed _bigger on the inside_.

Mordin thought he misheard.

Now, he along with ten others, just kept on staring and staring at the walls of the fighter bay, unable to understand -unable to comprehend!- the sheer technological mathematics and physics involved to make this true.

Hell, one of the exchange party members had refused to believe and had gone, got himself a ruler, and was still measuring!

He gave up after 50 meters.

Mordin had tried to argue with himself. 'Perhaps the bays were slanted inward!' he tried to argue, but the entry to the fighter bay itself had been towards the lower middle section of the dreadnought -and definitely perpendicular to the entire structure.

The old terran had chuckled (and it was slightly becoming infuriating). "We can't bend space _too_ much, but we do try."

"Try" the old terran had said. "Try."

Mordin realized then just how technologically superior the Terran League was ... and how stupid it was for the turians to have irritated them. It also explained some of the more trickier questions like the missiles, like how they were able to accelerate the missile from less than tenth of a tenth of a tenth of a tenth of a tenth of light speed to ... shield piercing acceleration.

God, he had been so scared of the missile itself already. If _one_ of those missiles accelerated just before it struck a planet's surface, it would be mini-extinction era.

* * *

Ilmensvies von Einzbern chuckled.

It would always be fun to crush another's ego.

Especially that of an assured scientist!

* * *

Otto only felt pity for the exchange party members. They probably had their entire world flipped upside down.

He cleared his throat. "Unfortunately, our time to use this bay is limited. Guest quarters have been prepared for you, and we would like to escort you there," he spoke out as he gestured for three attendees to come and take the exchange party members' luggage. "It will take us approximately a four days to reach our destination, so I hope you found our accommodations suited to your liking. But while we are ... trapped in this dreadnought, both I and my grandsire, Duke Ilmensvies von Einzbern, will be providing some lecture as to the mechanics and theories of magic we have promised to the Citadel Council and its members."

He watched as small conversations rose up from the aliens as they were herded towards their designated rooms.

"At least this didn't end like how the protoss first contact did," he muttered.

Ilmens grunted.

The protoss, unlike the races of the Citadel, had approached humanity with entire fleets of their armada and a forceful suggestion that followed.

To come under their rule.

The League as a whole had been outraged by the claim, never mind the diplomat! The public outcry had been significant, significant enough to force the then diplomat to deliver a message from the whole of humanity in severely strong words. Protoss took this as an insult -as it should have been- and left terran territory. It had been the reason why protoss and terran were antagonistic enough to go to war over a slight (by international standards).

From the codex that they were able to recover before coming to the Citadel, the higher-ups of the terran government had realized that Citadel would suggest something like that. However, this would establish a strong precedence that aliens wanted to subjugate humans in the minds of all its citizens. The leaders could not allow such a thing to occur. It would ruin international relations too much to make anything beyond diplomatic talks an impossibility.

To prevent such mindset from settling in within humans and to prevent such mindset to form by receiving a merging suggestion, the reparation force had been ramped up from what would have been five dreadnoughts to an entire fleet.

Yes, the reason why an entire fleet had been mobilized was to provide intimidation and establishment of the pecking order.

It had worked splendidly. The Citadel Council had been too cowered to even suggest the merging of the Terran League into Citadel Council.

"It better not end that way. This time, I'm not going to hold back," Ilmensvies grunted again.

Otto knew that his grandfather had lost a lot in the First Protoss-Terran War, as the first target to have been hit on the terran side was the Einzbern territory.

More specifically, the Einzbern core world of Ilyasviel.

Energy weaponry had been something of a new deal even back then for humanity. While magical projectiles were similar in shape and looks, the spectrum of energy in which they existed in this plane of existence was not. There had been no defense against the protoss fleet that had appeared in the orbit of Ilyasviel. The orbital strikes that followed their arrival may have been dampened by magic shields erected around all population centers, but they still struck with power that humanity had not known before.

In the first orbital strike, Duchess Sarah Svieerg-Einzbern, the wife and the heart of Northern Star Archipelago had been killed.

Her death had been one of the reasons why the First Protoss-Terran War had ended as quickly as it did.

Einzberns, who as a semi-sovereign nation within the Terran League, would have stayed clear of the war as it brought them no profit. But when Duchess Sarah had been killed, it had struck the hearts of many citizens of the Archipelago.

Duchess Sarah had been at the heart of many expedition prior to the war where she sought out Heroic Spirits and Counter Guardians alike in the Awakening. She used both words and force to subdue them, and saved many people in the process. Even when she could have simply hired doctors and laborers to deal with the aftermath created by the Heroic Spirits, she personally stayed at each location -unless she was in dire need elsewhere as one of only thousand people capable of fighting Heroic Spirits one-on-one- and cared for the people, especially within her dukedom.

It had touched the heart of many.

And then she had been killed.

Einzberns and their subjects had risen up in an uproar. Fleets were made that rivaled that of the entire Terran League's fleets.

In fact, the dreadnoughts present at the Reparation fleet were _all_ Einzbern Svieerg-dreadnoughts.

They marched across the protoss worlds, burning all those who refused to surrender as revenge.

It was one of the reasons why all of the Einzberns were revered and hated by both humans and protosses.

But what most do not know is that the power of the Einzberns was not at full force.

Ilmensvies von Einzbern knew better than anyone else that his dukedom's power was not so _small_. The Einzberns were patron of hundreds of powerful magi, many of them capable of untold destruction if given free-license to destroy. One such magus was the descendant of Emiya Shirou, the man who would become EMIYA. The Emiya magus had driven further and achieved higher than his ancestor had done, and had become what many dubbed as King of War.

During the Awakening, he had taken on ten Heroic Spirits and squashed them all with only minor wounds and a crater a kilometer wide to show for the spirits' efforts.

He was such a man. A man of power and destruction.

Yet none of those magi had been released. Not single one of them.

Fleet capable of matching the entire humanity's fleets? What use were they when these magi could scar a planet for untold generations, seeding fear for centuries to come? What use were the warships when the only ship needed for the Einzbern expedition had been a few transports and their escorts?

Ilmensvies held back, and many within the hierarchy of humanity knew this.

To hear that he will not hold back next time?

Unlucky them.

There were not many worse things to call upon oneselves.

"So how goes the war?" Otto asked, part out of curiosity and part out of distracting the old man from the scene before him.

The head of the Einzbern family gave him a glare before scoffing.

It was a secret within the family regarding the Third True Magic, Heaven's Feel. Yes, the Einzberns have reachieved their goal, and have dedicated themselves to find uses for the true magic, one that calls upon the souls.

One odd application was actually to _split_ one's soul. This added with the Einzbern specialty of homunculi magecraft allowed Ilmensvies to actually experience perspective from more than one view. Otto was one of the few who knew roughly how many souls the old head had split himself into, and one such body was in the frontlines as the commander of North Star Archipelago Dukedom Navy.

"The planet is still being contested if that's what you're asking," he replied as he turned around to leave. "Come, let's discuss it on the way back."

Otto nodded before following quietly behind the old man.

"Protoss had attempted to land their troops there again, even though they knew that we had more than a dozen Heroic Spirits waiting for them. But I guess they only needed to succeed once with whatever plan they had concocted; they managed to set up near impenetrable base camp."

Otto was shocked.

The planet of Auriga -or the Battleground, or whatever other names the people came up with- was the contested ground for the Second Protoss-Terran War. If what his grandfather was stating was a fact, which it most likely was, then this would be the first time either faction had set up a base worth mentioning. Before today, no base had survived more than a day before it was orbitally bombarded to high heavens.

"So they achieved something we couldn't do, huh?"

"And I suspect that they'll be harvesting their vespene gas soon enough."

Vespene gas. It was a naturally occurring gas in planets that had high energy content. Even terran scientists and arcantechnologists were tempted to use it for their fuel system.

The protoss energy systems had become dependent on this natural gas, and had developed along systems and sectors that contained medium to high reserves of such gases. They have even research labs dedicated to artificially producing the revered good.

It was also the reason why Auriga was such a contested battleground. Its proximity to either side of the warring factions aside, it held extremely high vespene gas content below its surface. Terran Naval High Command had realized this, and was still fighting hard to keep the protoss from occupying the world. The occupation of Auriga by Protoss Coalition would make war that much more costly. In fact, the resources lost in the battles occurring right this minute over the said planet and the battles that had occurred before would be nothing compared to what would happen.

The planet would decide who won or who lost this war.

Allowing the protoss to set up a camp on the planet was detrimental for the League, and Otto had no doubt about how much force the entirety of the military around Aurgia would act to destroy that protoss hold.

Otto bet that it would take no less than a week before one of the terran commanders in charge decided to just blow up the local vespene gas reserve to take out that foothold instead of letting the foothold stay.

Of course, such an action would bring about more protoss retaliation. Humans would fight back and retaliate even more.

So on and so on.

As far as both Otto and Ilmensvies were concerned, the Northern Star Archipelago, which was located on the _other side_ of the goddamn Terran League from the war, was not interested.

It was actually one of the reasons why Ilmensvies came here personally. The Northern Star Archipelago was closer to the Citadel Council and its members than any other political party thanks to Shanxi relay; Shanxi was part of the Northern Star Archipelago.

He came here personally to evaluate the threat level of the Citadel races, and found them lacking.

* * *

Terminus Alliance Territory

The best way to describe the Terminus Alliance was to compare it to a group of warlords and their smaller allies that had banded together for their mutual benefit, Aria thought as she and the other generals of the Alliance were tinkering of ways to raid the new race.

It also brought about a rule that even she was unwilling to break.

If it was deemed profitable by majority of the warlords and system lords, then the whole of Terminus Alliance would move to action.

Just 5 days ago, a mere week after the revelation of this new race called "Terrans," majority of the Terminus Warlords, 26 out of 32, had decided to raid the Terran League for their new technology. The general consensus was that the Terran League could not possibly defend all of their territory, and so as long as the Terminus Warlords raided a single world and wiped it off the face of the galactic map, no one would be able to pinpoint the destruction on them.

Aria had disagreed, even if she went along with the plan making and preparation. Before the vote was put into place, she had argued that such an action would be suicidal, especially when one puts into consideration that one of the Terran dreadnoughts fucked over a full fleet of Turian Hierarchy Navy.

Other warlords dismissed her -a sure sign that her position as one of the three prime warlords of Terminus Alliance was waning- and decided to amass together thirty dreadnoughts.

Now one must understand that Terminus Alliance dreadnoughts were different from Citadel in that they were much lighter and slightly shorter. In fact, most of the Terminus dreadnoughts could be classified as a cruiser if not for the fact that only the spinal cannon was elongated to provide the same length as Citadel this reason, Terminus dreadnoughts were weaker, and at the same time, allowed Terminus dreadnoughts to be mass produced by a dozen for every two or three Citadel dreadnoughts made.

This change had been brought to one of the Terminus Warlords by a young turian starship desginer. He was ... different so to speak. His attittude and behavior was closer to a masculine version of an asari. As such, he had been shunned by the rest of society despite his ingenuity in starship designing. Feeling empty and angry, he had brought his designs to a turian Terminus Warlord who calls himself the "Renovatica." In the end, the young turian was much appreciated by all of Terminus.

Aria also reminded the arrogant idiots that from what small number of video footage of terran dreadnoughts fighting were reviewed, their ships were not going to survive even _one_ of them.

In the end, she gave up and agreed to provide some land troops and specialists.

Currently, they were targeting a sector of space that goes by the name of...

* * *

"... Northern Star Archipelago? What kind of name is that?" Terminus Warlord "Inferno" asked his subordinate as he stared at the ominitool in front of him.

As one of the five krogan warlords of Terminus, he had volunteered to undertake this mission under command. At first, there had been objections, when he stated that he was going to provide all of his fleet to this task, those objections died down.

"It is a name, sir. Nothing more," his secretary replied.

The krogan warlord scoffed. "Well, how are the preparations?"

His secretary brought up his own omnitool for the report. "As of right now, we have forty nine dreadnoughts, fourteen of which are yours, milord. They and an armada in the upper ten thousands wait your command."

"Good," he muttered before speaking louder. "Are they all ready to enter the relay?"

Relay 912 was a small relay that was discovered Terminus explorers in the last week by the ever incentive happy freelancers of the Alliance. Completely disregarding the laws regarding Citadel's policy on opening relays, they opened it... and found themselves inside Terran territory.

The Terminus Raid Fleet #1 was currently parked outside of the said relay, ready to jump through and burn a planet of their choosing to ash and dust.

One of the comm officers turned to him. "Scouts are reporting no significant fleet movement in adjacent star systems, sir."

Inferno scoffed. "I don't get _why_ we have to wait like this. Don't they know that more we wait, more likely it is for those puny terrans to find us?" He shook his head. "Bah. Whatever." He turned on the broadcast to all ships in the fleet. "We jump through the relay at my command! Give me the sign you're ready!"

* * *

 **Region: Northern Star Archipelago**  
 **System: Irisviel**  
 **Patrol Group _Grail_**

For the patrol group _Grail_ , life was unassuming, boring, and paid a lot. Their job, in essence, was to sit at the edge of solar system where all the good stuff was going on and watch out for "enemies."

Adam Shepherd wanted to kill himself.

What fucking enemies?

The last time someone attacked the home system of the Einzbern family was when the First Protoss-Terran War broke out. No protoss or human alive was stupid enough to attack here, where the Einzbern family ruled over their dukedom.

In fact, the last time there was trouble was when a mercenary gang by the name of Blue Suns got lost in the system after their radar and sensors got fried in their previous fight. Not even a single shot had been fired before they left.

It was like a law.

You don't mess with the Einzbern.

Adam shivered.

He recalled his younger self, a young boy of ten.

He remembered adults and his older brothers signing up for war.

He remembered the warships that blocked out the skies of Ilyasviel.

He remembered the rage everyone reeked out of their pores.

He remembered the roar of angered magi as they were forbidden to participate in the revenge.

He remembered how many of them beat their own chest.

Why must we give mercy to those who killed a saint?

Hell, Adam Shepherd remembered his father crying because of exactly that...

 _His father stood before the Duke Einzbern. Both men had their family with them. Daniel Shepherd was a friend of the Einzbern, someone who was close enough to them that he could request a family-to-family audition. With the entire Einzbern._

 _He had been granted the audition he sought, and argued for he and his family's participation in the war._

 _The House of Shepherd only existed up til that day because the Duchess had spared innocent members of a long bygone Shepherd Clan. All living members owed her for the protection she provided personally against lynch mobs that sought to hang the Shepherds, innocent or guilty._

 _Guilty of what, exactly?_

 _Of attempting the duchess' assassination._

 _Daniel Shepherd had been one of the most persecuted due to his father being the assassin that nearly took the duchess' life. In fact, the lynch mob had "saved" him as they hung his brothers and sisters who had not escaped them. Those who were "not part of the crime" were "spared" as they were executed on spot. Those who had followed their father and the man's allies were hung, killed slowly as possible for daring to harm the duchess._

 _When it came to be his turn, as he was surrounded by the dead bodies of friends and family, the duchess that his family had tried to kill had thrown her own body to save Daniel from the lynch mobs._

 _She had been but 25 then, and it earned her the title of Saint. The Saint of Irisviel._

 _Daniel was enraged he could not pay that debt that. He lived because the Duchess had saved him. He had a family, a life, and happiness because of her._

 _Yet... Yet he could not even revenge her...?_

 _He couldn't seek out the xeno's that killed the Saint of Irisviel?_

 _He couldn't avenge his mother figure?!_

 _Ilmensvies von Einzbern stood that day, looking as frail as he did now, and walked up to Daniel. The then head of Shepherd was a head taller than the old man._

 _And the old man merely placed his hand on the Sheperd's shoulder._

 _"I'm sorry."_

 _Daniel had begged. He went knelt down in front of his entire family. He begged as tears rolled down his cheeks._

 _"Why?"_

 _"It was her last will."_

 _".. Her last will?"_

 _"...Let us give mercy to those who sought to harm us."_

Adam remembered his father crying then. Hell, all of the older family members of the Shepherds had shed thick tears.

The very next day, the Einzberns gathered all magi who sought to avenge the Saint, and read her will without leaving anything out.

There hadn't been a body left to recover.

Adam could not remember how many men and women cried. It was a funeral session with only her words to go by.

Now he stood here at the first line of defense of Irisviel and Ilyasviel.

His father and many others had died since then, unable to fulfill their debt. He stood here in their place as well as for his own, and stood his ground...

But ...

It didn't help that it was boring, even if boring for good for those on Ilyasviel.

Klaxon blared as the entire spaceship came to life, detecting unknown ships jumping into the systems by the hundreds. The number rapidly climbed up into the tens of thousands with more than two dozen dreadnoughts.

...

Perhaps he may have spoken too soon.

He activated his holoscreen. "Alert Ilyasviel of what's happening!"

* * *

Inferno grinned as he watched exactly one terran dreadnought with its escorts move to intercept the already moving Terminus Fleet.

"Ha ha ha!" he laughed out loud. "Destroy that ship and move unto the planet! We can't be delayed for too long!" he snickered some more.

"Yes, sir!" the crew responded and began to relay orders to the rest of the fleet. He watched as troop transports separated from the rest of the fleet while half of the combat-capable ships moved to secure the mass relays. They set themselves up in a sphere to destroy anything that came through.

The fleet with Inferno marched on towards the blue planet behind the terran dreadnought.

He grinned. He had expected this small amount of ships, but it was always good to know that he was right.

Unlike many other commanders, Inferno was a man of tactics and discipline, despite being a krogan.

He liked his troops to be aware of their own surrounding. He trained them to be so.

He liked having his commanders having independent action. He trained them to be so.

He liked having constant live update and communication between all of his troops.

He trained them to be so.

It was paying off. With minimal orders from himself, his troops -and those attached to his commanders- acted on their own to secure sites like the Mass Relay and separate the troop transports from the rest of the fleet.

"Incoming transmission. Should we put it on, sir?"

Inferno thought for a while.

"Naw, they're going to roast anyway," he replied. "All dreadnoughts are to fire once we're in range. Dreadnoughts only."

"Yes, sir."

* * *

Einzbern High Command was in shock. It had been little more than half of a century since the last attack upon their coreworld, and they were being striked at once more?!

Unfortunately, the duke was also not here...

"Send one of our fastest ships to both father and Terran League Navy," a voice rang throughout the command center. Every face turned to look, and saluted the one who spoke.

A man with white hair, red eyes, and scarred and aged cheek had walked into the command center.

This was the second son of Ilmensvies von Einzbern.

The Dreadlord Ilcosvies von Einzbern  
The Terror of Rebels

As the second-in-command militarily after his father, and having been on the planet, he had immediately come there to the command center to take command of the situation.

"Get back to work! I don't need those salutes!" he barked angrily.

Everyone did so, not wanting to earn the ire of the one Einzbern who was known for both his punishment and reward.

"I need data people! Is our planetary shields ready?!"

"Yes, sir!" one officer quickly replied. "Ilyasviel had responded to our call of aid, all planetary shields are ready to be activated! No structural integrity is seen!"

"Ground to orbit weapons?"

"In process of being activated, sir! All turrets facing the enemy fleet have been activated, and only the ones in the night side have yet to be!"

"Good, but get those up as well. I also want those emergency evacuation to go through smoothly! I don't want any accidents!"

* * *

Inferno watched as the terran patrol group -probably patrol group- stayed firm against the armada that came at them.

That's when they struck.

The entirety of the terran dreadnought lit up even as angry red swarms reeked out of the dreadnought. It was a whitish purple light that made the dull looking ship somewhat threatening.

Then it fired.

Whatever it had fired, the "projectile" sped through what should have been tens of thousands of kilometers, and pierced through a dreadnought left of his own. It took no less than five seconds before it blew up.

"So they were truly this strong," Inferno grinned as his dreadnoughts returned fire.

The terran dreadnought held, even as its shields flared dramatically all over its surface. Terran cruisers, on the other hand, were gutted on spot as several dreadnoughts had deliberately sought to end those faster.

* * *

"All of our frigates are down!"

* * *

Inferno's grin grew wider when he saw the first sign of terran dreadnought's shield failing and several shots got through together as his fleet's frigates were upon the terran dreadnought.

* * *

"Shield is at 17%! Armor is taking damage! Sectors 1, 5, and 16 are leaking atmosphere. Closing them off!"

Adam Shepherd growled. "Goddamn those xeno's!" he roared.

"Incoming transmission from Einzbern High Command!"

"Put it on screen!"

As soon as they were on screen, Adam received an odd order.

* * *

Inferno watched in slight confusion as the terran dreadnought slowly turned away from his fleet.

Then it hit him.

"It's trying to run away! Strike at it with everything!"

But it was too late.

It opened up one of those wormholes and fled through it. Several fighters tried to enter the wormhole, but they were ripped apart instantly by some electromagnetic storm within.

Then it closed.

Inferno scoffed. "In the end, it escaped. You do realize there won't be much we can get from them now?" he said more to himself than anything. "Bah. Continue on with the raid on the planet! This is going to be a good payday regardless!"

And so began the Terminus War of Aggression against the Terran League.


	4. Chapter 4

**Hello, and welcome back to Midnight.**

 **This chapter will be mostly information regarding some of the planets, factions, new terms, and new heroic spirits that I have introduced into the story.**

* * *

 **Summary so far:**

 _Terran League has encountered the Citadel Council and its member races. Under the guidance of Ilmensvies von Einzbern, the League had elected to establish pecking order and nothing else. Most of this had to do with the fact that the League itself was in a war with another alien race by the name of Protoss Coalition with the most contested battleground being the planet of Auriga._

 _The Einzberns, on the other hand, elected remain unaffiliated in the war. Such was not to be as, the Terminus Alliance, a loosely connected group of Terminus warlords, struck at the Northern Star Archipelago._

 _Striking, of all places, the core world of Ilyasviel._

 _It is unlikely that Ilmen will hold back this time._

* * *

 **...**

 **...**

 **Accessing Terran League Naval Database Archive Server 1...**

 **Access Code: _ .**

 **...**

 **...**

 **Access Code accepted...**

 **...**

 **...**

 **Inquiry?**

 **...**

 **Inquiry processed.**

* * *

 **Terran League**

Member Races: 90% Gaia Human, 7% XT Humans, 3% Kel Protoss, 0.001% Phantasmal Creatures

History:

The Terran League has existed in its current form for 214 years, and with its foundation started a new galactic calendar, the Sol Calendar.

The Terran League was a necessity in the early days of humanity's expansion into the stars. Rich and the powerful were running off with their resources into the stars and founding their own empires. These empires would end up warring with each other, and created an era of Warring States that lasted for 210 years, just three years before the formation of the Terran League.

Terran League was formed by four of the most powerful sovereign states: the Gaia Alliance, Shingogooryuh, Vjanyaguer Empire, and the Northern Star Archipelago. These states formed an alliance in 81 BSC/2505 AD to unite whole of humanity. The reason behind this alliance is relatively vague and unknown, only that there was a sense of urgency. They paved a warring path that swallowed the whole of the human territory, and by 10 BSC, they had swallowed up most of the human planets. It was at 4 BSC that they declared the unification of mankind and the rise of Terran League.

Even after the formation of the Terran Leagues, these states hold semi-sovereignties status, even to this day.

Since its formation, the Terran League has done much to stabilize the economy, mend the relationship between planets, and advance sentient rights through its territory. Indeed, compared to the Expansionist Warring States, the initial stage of the Terran League has produced much more stability and happiness ratings (not having a gun pointed to one's head makes a lot of people happy).

However, in the late history of the Terran League, there have been uprisings and rebellions in the galactic west of the League's territory for various reasons spanning from "unfair representation" to "corrupt government."

Society:

Due to the Expansionist Warring States, most planets began to develop their own culture and tradition in order to differentiate themselves. This has led to diverse mixture of existing and coexisting original cultures. However, the number of cultures is still low compared to that of Earth's(Gaia's).

Economy:

The whole of Terran League could be described as self-sustainable. With the exception of trade centers, like Earth(Gaia), Ilyasviel, Byelsung, and Lokhar Prime, trade is low between planets outside of their local region or archipelagos. However, one of the most traded commodities include grain, media, culture-related goods, and defense-related goods.

Population:

Most of the population of Terran League are Core Humans. These are humans who have not adapted to their planets and exists as they always have.

Very slowly rising population are extraterrestrial humans, or XT Humans. They are humans who have begun to adapt to their own planets, showing very small difference in phenotype(appearance). Most of these humans have begun to appear with the popular day-to-day adaptions of the studies of xenopranaterrestrialogy, founded by Ilmensvies von Einzbern. In essence, they had sought out to the planets they had lived on, communicated, and integrated themselves, albeit only a tiny portion of themselves, to the planet. The most popular of these adaptation is the rise of "elves" in the Byelsung.

The second to last is actually Protoss. To be specific, these protoss are of the Kel Tribe, a tribe of protoss who had reached too far from their core worlds and outer worlds, and have lived in isolation for thousands of years. They had joined the Terran League long before the rest of the protoss made First Contact. However, to separate themselves from the rest of the protoss, they have chosen to decorate themselves in such manner... They genetically modified every single individuals of the Kel Tribe to have human body. Yes, they had changed the genes of their entire species down to the core to have human features. This has resulted in steep degradation of natural lifespan and height as well as physical appearance like two joint legs. They gained human face, human genitalia, and even a mouth.

The smallest of the population that makes up the Terran League is the Phantasmal Creatures. They range from Dead Apostles, True Dead Apostle Ancestors, dragons, fairies, goblins, dwarves, and the like.

* * *

 **Protoss Coalition**

Member Races: 100% Protoss

History:

Protoss Coalition did not exist more than forty years, and only formed in response to the complete dismemberment of the Azul Theocracy, the superpower of the protoss sovereign nations at the time. It was fear that drove the normally calm protoss into one power, and only for as long as the terrans posed a threat to them.

Society:

Due to long and large history, protoss have a much more diverse and rich cultures in almost all of their planets. Like turians, protoss like to paint themselves by their planetary designation.

Economy:

N/A

Military:

Known Protoss Coalition military capabilities are in the thousands of dreadnoughts and millions of cruisers. Only reason Terran League has yet to fall to them is the fact that for each of the terran dreadnoughts, three or four protoss dreadnoughts meet their end.

Technology:

The technology of the protoss in general is that of the psionic-crystotechnology. It is similar to terran's arcanotechnology and the like in the fact that it requires a non-physical energy input from users. Their most widely observed usages of this technology are the energy shielding and anti-gravitation. Not much is not known.

* * *

 **Magecraft Rating System (MRS)**

Developed with the founding of the Terran League, the Magecraft Rating System exists to help both magi and mundane put on a general "placement marker" for the potential of known magecrafts. Magecrafts listed under MRS are all known magecrafts to the public, and may not list those practiced by a tight circle of magi who had opted to not have their magecraft recorded.

There are two categories of classification. The first is the military application of the magecraft. The second is civilian application of the magecraft. Under each category, there are classifications of danger or usefulness. Each magecraft is then given a classification corresponding Quality, usually given alphabets with EX/S being the highest and F being the lowest.

It must be noted that a single magecraft (not spell) can have different classification under each category.

 **Military Application**

 **Pup** \- Harmless.  
 **Dog** \- Can be used to harm.  
 **Hound** \- Harmful. Reinforcement, Projection, and Tracing falls under this category.  
 **Pack** \- Very Harmful. Military Grade. More often than not, magecraft is deliberately engineered to be used on the battlefield beyond this point.  
 **Cerberus** \- Extremely Harmful.  
 **Demon** \- Dead Apostle Ancestor level. Capable of rendering an entire area lifeless or full of life. All magecraft that falls under this category is to be confiscated, magus involved in development included, and to be under constant guard. All True Magic falls under this classification.

 **Civilian Application**

 **Green** \- Very useful with no side effect.  
 **Yellow** \- Useful with little side effect. Most magecraft including falls under here.  
 **Orange** \- Debatable usefulness with some side effect.  
 **Red** \- Useless with significant side effect.  
 **Black** \- MRS community has yet to find out which is easier: to convict magus for terrorism using magecraft under this category in mundane civilian environment or to kill them silently as to avoid trouble in the first place. Kaledioscope falls under here.

* * *

 **Heroic Spirits (New) and Individuals**

 **Wellu bon Sellarius, the King of Rebels**

History:

Born to a family of seven in the city of Amallon of the Q'Yunski planet of the Teverius Kingdom territory, Wellu was a girl of no special consequences. Her father was a third-rate magus specializing in Projection and her mother was a fashion designer of unknown popularity. Wellu received education without any recorded problem from elementary to high school.

It was during her college years that she began to change. She began to delve into the "darker" magecrafts after her father had passed away during a firefight between cops and drug dealers. She began to experiment with the magecraft she created, "Nightmare Spectral." It changed her features from a brown haired, peach skinned, and young lady to a white haired and red tattoo'ed magus. She was expelled from the college for practicing unknown magecraft without supervision, and arrested for the same reason. She was forced to join the Holy Knights of the Teverius Kingdom in 51 BSC. She became a warrior-magus within six years, and sent out to the frontlines to fight.

In the frontlines, she excelled in combat with her magecraft. Within months, she had earned herself the title of Ghost Queen by her allies and the Dread Witch by her enemies. It must be noted that during this time, Wellu was seen crying often over the dead bodies of both comrades and enemies. Even back then, Teverius Kingdom was known for its inhumane treatment of its subjects, and often times, soldiers would serve as body shields in an era where arcanotechnology has given rise to magic shields.

Traumatized by war and death and furious with her treatment and life, she began to gather supporters and alliances within and outside of the military she found herself in. It took her three years, but no one caught her or noticed the changes.

At 41 BSC, she led her allies and supporters to the the core world of Teverius Kingdom.

There, she revolted. She led fifty dreadnoughts and an army of a million to the battlefield against the capital of her nation. This forced the warring state of Teverius Kingdom to halt all outward expansion and to turn their focus to her.

For a full month, she waged a successful rebellion against the Teverius Kingdom. Her soldiers fought with a vigor unseen in those of the Teverius with conviction nearing zealotry.

Then at 39 BSC, she successfully toppled the Teverius Kingdom, and raised the First Stellar Republic, which would willingly annex themselves to the Terran League fifty years later.

Her legend as the King of Rebels, someone who sought to end the scheming nobles and kings inspired many to do the same as her. It was because of her first rebellion that led one of the many necessary roads of democracy that would help to found the Terran League, and is attributed with bringing back democracy into the hands of humanity during an era filled with warlords and dictators.

It was because of this she had been named the King of Rebels.

During the Awakening, she rose up in the planet of Sveri in the Northern Star Archipelago. She was one of the few Heroic Spirits to willing swear a vow and a pact of loyalty to a living human. Her pact belongs to Ilmensvies von Einzbern. Since her Awakening, she has yet to see serious combat.

Weapons/Magecraft:

 _Nightmare Spectra Theater_ (magecraft): Allows the user to give rise to semi-transparent spectral in large numbers. Most of these spectrals take the form of her fallen soldiers, as if she was raising them from the dead to fight by her side once more.

 _See Thy Bloodied Hands_ (Aria): This is her initiating Aria that allows her to use her magecraft, Nightmare Spectra Theater. Without this aria, her usage of her magecraft is severely restricted to mere ten Soldier Spectral.

 _Soldier Spectral:_ Basic infantry spectral. Wellu can summon these in the thousands and requires little of her to maintain them. However, they can take only a single fatal hit before they disappear.  
-Aria: _Solemn vows you have made shall bring you back to my side._

 _Phatasmal Spectral:_ Specialized spectral. Taking the form of undead dragons, she can only summon three of these, but each are capable of A rate strength, flight, and dragon breath.  
-Aria: _Nightmare knows few bounds. My eyes and mind has seen it all._

 _Rise, My Rebels!_ (Reality Marble): Unknown landscape. Unknown power. Unknown restriction. Unknown Aria. Unknown requirements.

Unknown Noble Phantasm.

Alignment **:** Chaotic Good

Quality  
Strength: C  
Endurance: C-  
Agility: D-  
Mana: A-  
Luck: C-  
Noble Phantasm: B

Skill:  
Soul of Martyr: C+  
-Any mental interference ranking below C+ will not affect her in the slightest. At B-, it is noticeable, at B+, she cannot fight it.  
Melee Combatant: C+  
Range Combatant: C+  
Support Combatant: A

Personality:

Wellu is known to be a cold, pragmatic individual in both private and public functions. While she does possess large popularity as one of the esteemed contributors to the rise of interstellar democracy, she uses none of it nor does she bask in it. In fact, she goes out of her way to avoid popularity. Both her pragmatic and anti-popular behavior comes from one of her mantra.

"Success does not proliferate in the minds of relaxed and ecstatic."

She disregards those who come to her to see her for popularity and importance as a historical figure, and respects those who see her as someone more than just a past figure.

She can also be said to be the ideological rival of Arturia Pendragon. Where King Arturia put everything she had down for her people and nation, Wellu's reasons were more selfish. She talked once about her reasons regarding her rebellion, and stated as such.

"I destroyed Teverius Kingdom because I did not like it. I did not like its inhumane treatment. I did not like its forced conscription. I did not like its concept. I abhored the people who lived off their subordinate while they grew fat. I personally found them to be hateful, and such was my reason for rising. I did not start the rebellion because I had a ideological enlightenment. I did not lead the rebellion because I was unhappy with status quo. I did it to satisfy myself."

 **Ilmensvies von Einzbern**

History:

Ilmensvies von Einzbern was born to an unknown father and Ilyasviel von Einzbern, who had through politics and sometimes brute force, inherited the title of the Head of the Einzbern family. Under loose guidance of his parents, he was allowed to grow up with the mundane. He was not taught magecraft until he was eight years old. He reached adulthood without much trouble nor achievement.

However, it was his entrance to adulthood that had started his string of achievements. In 2026, the Sixth Holy Grail War had taken place in Fuyuki City once more. Seven masters and seven Servants had been chosen, and war had begun. The exact details of the scenario is unknown to the world, but within the first two days of the Sixth Holy Grail War, Ilmensvies von Einzbern had entered the battlefield as a non-master and subjugated three Servants. This drew the attention of those still in the war, and they allied to take him down.

In the battle that is now known as End of Grail War, Ilmensvies von Einzbern showed to the world for the first time Heaven's Feel, the long lost Third True Magic belonging to the Einzberns. His reserves of prana became bottomless, and all of his magecraft took advantage of that. In the span of three hours, he killed all participants.

Then he went onto cleanse the Holy Grail. And with the cleansed Holy Grail, he had made his wish.

"I wish for the mundane world to accept the existence of magic."

Once the wish was granted, he destroyed the Holy Grail by overloading it using his Heaven's Feel. He later commented that Einzberns, one of the founders of the Holy Grail Wars, had "installed" a safety feature should they become the winners of the Holy Grail War. If they had won, then the wish would have been to achieve the Heaven's Feel. Since they were successful, they no longer needed the Holy Grail, and thus only option left behind to make sure the Holy Grail could no longer bother them was to destroy it.

He described his action like how it was similar to filling up a balloon, and letting it explode once it reached its critical level.

What followed could only be described as Chaos. Mage Association and other organization more or less declared war upon the House of Einzbern, and the family itself had been fractured. It was only the blessing of the Holy Church taking the side of the Einzberns as well as Tohsaka, Emiya, and several smaller but numerous clans and houses taking the side of the Einzberns that kept the house from falling to ruin. However, a war did take place, lasting a mere week. The casualties of the war reached into the tens of thousands, not counting third party, and resulted in the death of Illyasviel von Einzbern and her husband.

He spent the next three decades uniting the whole of the moonlit world's human population while obliterating oppositions. By 2051, he had done what no other magus had done; he had united the moonlit world under a single flag. He initiated and saw through the introduction of new policies that would shape the magi for centuries to come. One such policy was Magecraft Rating System.

In 2106, he had grown bored -or so he had said in one interview ( _Who is the Duke of Northern Star Archipelago?_ , Byskiivs pg. 51)- of Earth(Gaia), and began to advocate development of stellar travel. Once space travel became possible for commercial usage, he then invest much of his time and effort to making it even more He then bought the rights to a group of stars now known as the Northern Star Archipelago, and set out the second ever colonization effort made by humanity. It was due to his success with the colonization of star so far away from the homeworld that many people set out to do the same. It was because of this that Ilmensvies von Einzbern is actually considered the most important figure in history during the following two eras: Frontier Era and the Expansionsit Warring States Era.

During the Expansionist Warring States, he made allies with Jeollakimsuh and the Chavrujir. This would remain informal until 81 BSC when they began to conquer the rest of human planets in earnest.

Since the establishment of the Terran League, Duke Einzbern has made little contact beyond his allies, family, and his core world of Ilyasviel. He has been ignored invitation to weddings and formal events sent by his allies.

Magecraft:

 _Heaven's Feel_ (True Magic):  
-generates an infinite amount of prana.

 _Homunculi Contruction_ (magecraft):  
-allows for user to construct a homunculi. Experienced creator can make a C-rank homunculi in the span of a year.

 _Starlight Paradise_ (magecraft):  
-this is Ilmensvies' own personal magecraft. It allows him to create temporary Mystic Codes from mundane, inorganic objects like rocks that results in a star-like mini balls. He can apply spells to each "stars" to a known maximum of ten. This was the magecraft used to defeat Servant Lancer, Servant Archer, Servant Assassin, and Servant Rider in the Sixth Holy Grail War. It is classified as Yellow-Pack MRS classification, or A-rank with alphabet ranking.

Skills:  
Xenopranaterrestrialogist A+  
Melee Combatant: D  
Range Combatant: B+  
Support Combatant: A+  
Politician: B+  
Legislator: B-  
Rulership: B+  
Geologist: D-  
Arcano-Engineer: C-  
Philosopher: N/A  
General: B-  
Homunculi Creator: B+

Personality:

Ilmensvies is a iron fist ruler with a cotton candy held in the other hand. He has followed his policy of stick and carrot since his wish making in the Sixth Holy Grail War. He does not revel in negative emotions, but nor does he revel excessively in positive emotions.

He keeps strict handle on his carnal desires. He has shown significant degrees of control over his own emotions when his own wife had requested in her last words to harm those who had harmed her. He obliged to her wishes.

However, if there is only thing he enjoys, it is improving his own special magecraft, the Starlit Paradise. He has been known to smile when he makes shows for young children in the orphanages all around Ilyasviel, despite him trying to keep his smile, shows, or visits a secret.

Alignment: Neutral Good

Quality  
Strength: D (C- with Reinforcement)  
Endurance: D+  
Agility: C- (C+ with Reinforcement)  
Mana: EX  
Luck: C  
Magecraft: Yellow-Demon (MRS). A (alphabet ranking)

* * *

 **Planets**

Ilyasviel

With a rich history of 400 years, fourth only to Earth, it is one of the centers of humanity as cultural, magical, and financial centers of northern Terran League territory. Discovered and colonized by Ilmensvies von Einzbern, it is also the core world of the House of Einzbern, where they rule supreme with both iron fist and kind policies. It also has the highest number of individually patroned magi.

Magic Ranking: 2nd

Economy Ranking: 3rd

Culture Ranking: 3rd

Main exports are prana energy crystals and honey.

Main imports are fabrics and raw gem.

Byelsung

The second oldest colonized world, Mars being first, it is also another center of trade, culture, and magic, though this one is in the eastern Terran League territory. It was discovered and colonized by Joonhwah Jeollakimsuh. Unlike Ilyasviel, its status as a magical center does not come from being a patron of individual magus but as the planet with most magecraft related universities and wide research funding.

Main export is grain.

Main import is clothing, electronics, and prana energy crystals.

Magic Ranking: 3rd

Economy Ranking: 1st

Culture Ranking: 6th

Earth(Gaia)

As the homeworld of the humans, it is under protection various factions who seek to keep the planet under pristine condition and keep violence off of it. As such, numerous laws have been made regarding space traffic and flora and fauna exchanges.

Magic Ranking: 1st

Economy Ranking: 4th

Culture Ranking: 1st

* * *

 **Notable Houses (so far)**

House of Einzbern  
Ruler of Northern Star Archipelago, they are one of the most powerful families within Terran League. Ally of Jeollakimsuh, Tohsaka, Bahk, and Chavrujir. They possess 190 dreadnoughts.

House of Jeollakimsuh  
Ruler of the Black Red Star Conglomeration Archipelago, they are one of the most powerful families within Terran League. Ally of Einzbern and Chavrujir. They possess 180 dreadnoughts. They specialize in a broad spectrum of magecraft categorized under Projection. They respect Tracing, but in their own level system, Tracing reaches only to middle levels.

Emiya Clan  
Subordinate clan of the Einzberns. Their title is "the Defender." It is common throughout history to see Tohsaka-Emiya-Einzbern intermarriages. They possess two dreadnought, and possess under loan five dreadnoughts from the Einzberns. They specialize in Reinforcement and Tracing. The most famous member of this clan is Emiya Soshirou, the direct descendant of EMIYA. He is capable of fighting Dead Apostle Ancestors at their 50%, a feat matched only by Heroic Spirits.

House of Nunk  
Unofficial ruler of the planet of Vrusiic, which resides in the Common Territory of the Terran League. As the planet is rich in gems, they hold a close business relationship with the Tohsaka and the Einzbern. They specialize in mining and refineries.

House of Shepherd  
Subordinate Clan of the Einzberns. Their title is "the Shield." They specialize in melee combat suited for protection.

House of Tohsaka  
Ruler of the province of Kugariga on the planet of Ilyasviel. Ally of Einzbern and Bahk. It is common throughout history to see Tohsaka-Emiya-Einzbern intermarriages. They possess one dreadnought. They specialize in Jewelcraft and practice minor forms of Kaledioscope, the Second True Magic.

House of Bahk  
An immigrant magi house from the Black Red Star Conglomeration. They have sworn loyalty to Einzbern. They specialize in Mystic Code weaving.

Chavrujir Royal Family  
Ruler of the Vjanyaguer Empire, which consists of two star archipelagos. Ally of Jeollakimsuh and Einzberns, they are one of the most powerful families within Terran League. They possess 290 dreadnoughts. They specialize in agriculture. As lame as that sounds, they are the ones feeding half the population of the Terran League.

* * *

 **If you guys want to know some more about the background, just review it and I'll hammer something in.**

 **Okay, so for the alphabet ranking, let me give you all some examples.**

 **If one has A+ in strength, that's fucking Heracles. If you have B in Rulership, then you are a capable ruler. The Great Depression might make you work really hard to keep your nation floating, but you can manage it. If you have S or EX in rulership, your subjects better find a way to make you immortal, because if they do, it will be an unending golden age for them. On the other hand, if you have D- or lower, then you're pretty much screwed as rebels after rebels pop up in your territory.**


	5. Chapter 5

**So I got some reviews stating that I had large parts of Fate Stay/Night wrong. And I agree.**

 **After all, it was intentional.**

 **If you follow the Fate Stay/Night beyond the anime, you discover sooner or later that Zelretch the Wizard Marshall and the pracitioner of Second True Magic, the Kaledioscope, states -in summary here- that most worlds do not last more than a dozen generations before humanity is wiped out.**

 **This is the fucking opposite of what we want to accomplish. We want humanity to go up into space.**

 **Besides, who said this was a completely with anime, light novel, or manga? I specifically pointed out that this is AU. Ain't that the point of crossover?**

 **Let me give you one good example.**

 **Nowhere in the original light novels does Gilgamesh of all people say Mongrel.**

 **Yet it comes up everywhere. This is because fans have imagined him to say it, writing this all over the place, and the mainstream went ahead with it.**

 **Shit changes boys. On top of that, this is AU, but I pointed that already.**

 **If you have read any of my other stories, you know that I DO NOT KEEP EVERYTHING SAME. Who says magic has to die out? Who says humans can't create their own versions of magic? Who says humanity needs to be dependent on worldly powers for our magic?**

 **Isn't that what fanfiction is about? The extraordinary? The weird? The awesome? The powerful? The powerless? Imagination in words?**

 **The fact that there were some of you who reviewed the point of "not following" the laws and mechanics of Nasuverse to the letter is ridiculous. Why the hell are you even here?! This is fanfiction!**

 **I digress.**

 **People have wants and people have needs. They look for what they want. If you don't find what you want here, just leave.**

 **So for those of you who complained -review and pm- about me not following Nasuverse, I give this.**

 **AU**

 **Now leave me alone.**

* * *

 **Another rant.**

 **There has been a good review regarding the unnamed Emiya who can fight Dead Apostle Ancestors at 50%. I had to give it to them. It does sound ridiculous ... if one adds in some of the more extremely overpowered ancestors like Primate Murder, Crimson Moon, Zelretch, ORT, and Altrouge Brunested.**

 **Those guys are overpowered and should be in a group of their own.**

 **And I'm not even counting in the True Ancestors. True Ancestors are on a different level, they aren't Dead Apostle Ancestors.**

 **Shiki Tohno, one of the main characters of Nasuverse, kills one for god's sake, whatever the circumstance, and defeats another. It ain't impossible! Start complaining about current ones, will ya?!**

* * *

 **For the rest of you, here's a new chapter to keep you from being bored for another ten minutes or so.**

* * *

 **_=-^-=_  
_x_**

* * *

 **Region: Northern Star Archipelago**  
 **System: Irisviel**  
 **Planet: Illyasviel**

Ilcosvies von Einzbern, the temporary commander of the Illyasviel Planetary Defense and Militia, stood at the head of the tactical hologram table setup in the middle of the large command chamber. On one wall, a screen showed invading fleet deploy

He sighed. "I wished my brother was here, so I can drain him for his prana."

There was a nervous laugh, but a laugh nonetheless, among the command chain. It was a small joke of the Einzbern family. While Ilcosvies hadn been chosen as the heir to the Dukedom of Northern Star Archipelago over his older brother, it had been his cousin Otto Tohsaka-Bahk who he turned to for help. Help which often left Otto drained of prana despite his infamous Third True Magic.

It was rumored extensively that Ilcosvies used his cousin's magic to power his warships during the Awakening, which would explain why his ship had always survived reckless rush into battles without assistance.

"Status on the Anti-Orbital Turrets?" Ilcosvies spoke up.

"70% charged for dreadnought-hull piercing strength, sir!" one officer reported immediately. "Estimated time to completion is ten minutes!"

Officer in charge of radar shouted. "Enemy fleet is launching dropships!" he reported rapidly. "Estimated 300 dropships and another 300 escorts!"

Ilcosvies nodded as he heard those numbers. "Well, I think they're underestimating us a little too much," he said. "Let's show them exactly why we rule this archipelago, shall we?" he said with a savage grin.

It was returned by the command center's occupants with grins of their own.

* * *

 **Dropship 31**

"I thought this was supposed to be harder," one pirate muttered as he inspected his weapon. "I hope I can get a slave of my own today."

Another scoffed. "I heard it's better to sell the new race off as quickly as possible. Something about them being too strong?"

A third mercenary shrugged. "I don't exactly think they'll be too hard to deal with," he said. "Besides, if they get too annoying, I can always bash their head in."

The others scoffed and chuckled. "You krogans and headbutting. I'll never understand it," the first pirate replied as he finished his inspection, and laid his rifle across his lap.

Suddenly, there was a static in everyone's radio. "We got a lightshow down there, boys. It's almost as if they were having a festival before we-. Wait, what? They're ris-! Taking evasive manuever! They got energy AA-turrets!" the pilot shouted, and the dropship lurched to the side heavily.

The occupants quickly looked out of the small windows they were sitting next to.

And they all gawked.

There were thin towers dotting all over the planet as far as the eyes can see. Taller than skyscrapers, they were oddly white and thin things.

And they were shooting blue, red, orange, green, and black energy bolts omnidirectionally like a machinegun.

All countless numbers of them.

The pirates watched as more than seven energy bolts taking a u-turn to chase after a target they had missed.

"We're not gonna make it!" the pilot shouted over the comm as he hit the accel. "You guys need to jump! The ship's not gonna live for long!"

Without hesitation, all of the pirates shot towards the opening bay of the dropship and jumped out.

The pilot turned to jump as well, but he froze as he saw nine energy bolts heading for the ship.

"Shit."

* * *

Ilcosvies grinned maniacally as he stared at the overhead screen showing the red dots bleeping out of existence.

This was the infamous Einzbern planetary defense system that even Heroic Spirits had come to fear since the reconstruction of the cities across Ilyasviel after the destruction wrought by the protoss. Powered by numerous prana crystals hooked up to the main array, providing their energy, these towers were capable of firing near-plasma bolts at their enemies like a seeker missile at a sixty rounds per minute. A striking round per second that no Citadel kinetic shields had defense against. The best part was that once those energy bolts struck, they burned away anything they touched to gas in seconds , leaving little to no debris for cleanup crew to take away.

And they were all over the planet.

Unfortunately, they were built as AA-turrets and lacked the power to cover the ground to orbit distance or enough power afterwards to pierce anything after covering said distance.

Thankfully, the Anti-Orbital turrets were active, but they still needed some time to charge.

If the enemy fleet decided to orbital bomb the hell out of Ilyasviel, though...

He glanced at the throne that stood at the back center of the command room on an elevated stage.

The Throne of Ilyasviel.

It was the golden throne that was the ultimate defense mechanism for the planet. Using Third Magic, it provided a planetary shield with the unlimited energy Third Magic brings. However, if one who could not use Third True Magic were to use it ...

Simply, death was assured. The question was whether or not he suffered as his entire soul was drained of its magic circuit, his body burned, and then destroyed for providing even a sniff of power required to activate the planetary shield, even with the planet's help. Without Otto, older brother, or his father, the only three members so far to achieve the Third True Magic, he would die.

"We got enemies troops landing all over the capital city, sir," the radar officer reported. "Most civilians had been evacuated beforehand, but enemy troops in the Heaven Square are within a click distance of the closest evacuating civilians."

"I assume the Shepherds are on the case?"

"Yes, sir," the officer replied. "The Shepherd Militia has been activated, and they are scouring through the city right now."

"Good. How goes the turret?"

"Another five minutes, sir."

"Taking too long. Have the men-"

"Incoming orbital strike!" Puase. "Trueman City has been eliminated!"

Everyone immediately tightened their hold over where they were. The entire command chamber -and probably the entire command center- shook as the aftershock of the blast passed by them.

"How far away is the nearest incoming reinforcement?!" Ilcosvies growled. The situation had become tense immediately.

"Fifteen minutes away, sir!"

'...Perhaps time has come,' he thought to himself as he looked at the Throne. He knew that if he sat on the chair without possessing the Third True Magic, he would be subjected to the worst pain possible. His very soul would shatter from the necessary energy requirements.

Fifteen minutes was too much. The reinforcement would arrive to find a planet filled with his dead subjects. Hell, even five minutes for the Anti-Orbitals were too late.

But ... if he used the Throne, his soul wouldn't just shatter. It would disintegrate, for a lack of better word. He wasn't a good magus. He didn't have the reserves of anyone like Emiya. If he did, he might have a chance of survival for his soul, not his life.

He would die. He wouldn't even return to the Root for his soul to be recycled. There would be reincarnation for him.

He would just ... cease to exist. He would be free-floating energy to be used for the shield, and then it would disappear and with it himself.

The chamber shook once more. "They took out Shelter C! All life signs lost!"

That was a thousand people killed right there.

"Activate the Shields!" he shouted as he ran over to the "throne" of the command center, and slammed a red button on the right armrest before sitting down in a hurry. Everyone stared in horror as the heir of the Einzberns allowed himself to be pierced by the wire tubes that shot out of the chair.

"You don't have the True Magic, milord!" one of his retainers nervously stuttered as he ran up to his lord.

"I know," Ilcosvies muttered as he stared at the red button.

Everyone froze, even as the chamber shook again. They stared at their lord sit upon the chair, and they all knew what was to happen if their liege should be press that button. Their freezing was only for a second as the closest officer ran towards their liege to pull him out, even if one of them had to sit upon it.

The chamber shook again, throwing the would-be "usurpers" down to the ground.

"Shelter D is half caved..." the officer in charge of evacuation reported.

Ilcosvies gulped.

"No, let us do it, milord!" his retainer urged him as he moved to remove the wire tubes.

Ilcosvies considered it. After all, he wouldn't die from this... but ...

'I would be betraying myself,' he thought to himself. He would be betraying his ideal of being the frontline for his people as his family had always been.

It was then that he realized something.

He had been taught to show that the Einzbern family was beyond all things a magi family. Magic was the utmost important thing to them.

But that had changed, hadn't it? They were no longer a magi family.

They were rulers. Leaders. His father had been the one to make the dynasty into one that was worth being respected.

And he would be damned if he were to back out cowardly.

This was his duty!

He couldn't ask them to sacrifice themselves for him if he was unwilling to sacrifice himself as he always had done.

Ilcosvies snapped the man's hand away. "Leave," he growled before shooting a single pushing spell at the retainer, pushing him far away and out of the stage. Then he activated the throne' shield. It kept everything out, even air, despite being transparent and not soundproof.

"Dad!" the retainer shouted as soon as he got back up, freezing everyone. His run towards the throne was interrupted when another strike made the ground rumble.

The Terror of Rebels, the Dreadlord, smirked. "It's my last order, son," he told his bastard son. "I hereby declare you, Lucian Tohsaka, my 15 year old bastard son, as my legitimized child. You are now Lucian von Einzbern. As such, with my death and by the Primogeniture law of the Northern Star Archipelago Dukedom ..."

Everyone looked up in horror as their prince's hand came to hover over the button that would be his death.

"Goddamn it, don't do it, dad!" his revealed son shouted as tears fell. "You promised me have me see grandfather!"

An officer in the back sniffled as she input the command for the Planetary Shield Activation with his shaking hands. The officer gasped as tears fell down her face. At least this way, her liege's sacrifice, which he so looked to carry out, would not be in vain. She ended up sobbing openly by the time she had finished the input.

There were still one or two men who were intent on reaching their liege, ready to replace their irreplaceable, so honorable, too kind and yet cruelly just lord.

"...You are now the Heir of the von Einzbern. So do me proud, get married, learn magecraft, and be happy. That's my last order. Oh, and tell Otto and pops that I love them..." There was a pause as did everyone. "Dreadlord of von Einzbern..." he allowed his head to rest on the back of the chair. He clenched his jaw and and let out a stream of hot air from his nose.

"NOOOOO!" his son roared as he jumped at the shield and pounded his fists at it.

 _"Signing out."_

 _Click_

* * *

Inferno had succumbed to ordering the orbital strikes. More than a third of his entire ground troops had just been killed without a single casualty on the enemy side. That had set him off the edge. So he ordered his dreadnought to fire at the city.

But now that he saw how fragile these humans were under the orbital strikes, he wondered why he hadn't ordered it sooner.

He watched as the strikes land one after another, wiping out small cities at a time.

And then suddenly, he saw green.

Just green.

He blinked and looked around.

The green was everywhere. What was it and why was it here in his way of raid?

...

It struck him, and his jaw dropped in realization.

A planetary shield.

Their civilization was so advance that they had planetary shields.

And that posed a problem.

These people would survive to wage war upon the Terminus Alliance.

"Curses!" he growled as he turned to the officer. "Order all dreadnoughts to fire at that shield! We cannot let those humans live!" He turned to another officer. "Get Frigate Squad Three to haul an asteroid from nearby, and have them bombard the planet constantly. I don't care if they crack it in half, keep them coming!"

Of course, he knew that it was impossible for a group of six frigates to haul an asteroid big enough to "crack open" a planet. At best, they could haul a one kilometer long asteroid that would have the same tonnage as fifty or more dreadnoughts firing at the same time.

He watched in fury as what was supposed to be a rich raid turn in a frantic clean up. The dreadnoughts fired shot after shot at the green shield.

Barely any effect.

He roared in frustration and fury. "Keep firing!"

"Spatial distortion at our six!" an officer shouted over his superior's roar.

It silenced everyone.

* * *

Ilmensvies felt a very, _very_ cold shiver run down his spine at the sight of his planet covered in green, hexagonal shield.

He knew about the Planetary Shield, of course. It was the pinnacle of Third True Magic's current capability. He built it with his eldest son to protect their people better, and it was designed so that only the practitioners of the Third True Magic could use it. Anyone else would burn up their reserve and body trying to power it up. In the worst case, if a powerless civilian were to use it, it may even shatter their soul.

And the only three people who could use it were not on the planet.

He and Otto were on this ship.

And his eldest son was on the frontlines on Auriga, holding the protoss forces at bay with hundreds of Heroic Spirits, Counter Guardians, and Terran Navy.

At the same time, the Throne was keyed so that only those of his blood can use it -since it was unlikely that their True Magic would leave the family.

But ...

But there was only one person that could be on the planet that could use it.

The cold iron in his stomach suddenly began to burn. It burned his aged body like an inferno, and there was no stopping him.

"ARRGGHHHHHH~!" he screamed in despair as he came to realization.

Otto just stood still. His face too was marred in shock and despair.

Then Ilmensvies snapped.

The pact he had made with himself had been completed. He had held back in the previous two wars.

But these people attacked his planet, and _killed his son!_

Cold rage settled upon him once more, and his exhausted body stilled.

"Otto."

"Yes, grandfather?"

"...We go to war."

"Of course." With that, he pulled out his mystic code, a white gold ring on his index finger. "I, Otto Tohsaka-Bahk, stand here in witness of my liege's declaration of war." His ring glowed for a split second. "And as his servant, I shall see through this war." The ring glowed once more before subsiding.

And this time, he did not pray for those who were to die.

He wished them hell.

Ilmensvies made the handsign for system broadcast, and the bridge crew immediately obeyed. Then, the comm officer gave the duke a thumbs-up.

There was a pause. Then the old man drew in a small breathe before he spoke with a voice of steel. "Under the Terran League Constitution Article III allowing the Northern Star Archipelago's independent action, I, Ilmensvies von Einzbern, the Duke of Northern Star Archipelago, hereby declare war upon attacker of my world and their sovereign nation. The attacker's capital world shall be burned to the ground, their people slaughtered, their wealth plundered, and there will be **_no one_** that can stop us. I now withdraw my previous decree prohibiting magi from participating in coming wars.

"Nothing shall be held back.

"The whole might of the Northern Star Archipelago has been unleashed. And we shall deliver a swift extinction."


	6. Chapter 6

**What's up, guys. Welcome back to Midnight.**

 **SirMandokarla:**  
 **Thanks for the review mate. I'll be sure to look over my works more often to rid of the grammar issues and whatnot. What you are seeing is usually after I go over the chapter once or twice before I publish it.**

 **Enjoy the new chapter.**

* * *

Adam Shepherd let out an agonizing scream.

"S-Sir," his lieutenant muttered.

"Leave me alone!" Adam roared as he grabbed his chair and tossed it across the room. The chair flew, and struck the wall right next to his lieutenant. She flinched as the strength of an admiral broke the chair through the wall of his office, even as the chair broke. "Damn it, damn it, damn it!"

"Sir, you need to calm down before -!" she tried again, but this time, she was treated not with violence or threats, but hysterical sobbing. "S-Sir..."

"I-I let them down again," he sniffed as he collapsed on the floor. His face was in his hands, and his legs lay sprawled without a care. "A-Another one of my liege dead because I-I-I-"

"Sir... it's not just you."

The man looked up, and felt disgusted with himself when he saw the tear streaks on his lieutenant's face.

"We should've stayed and fought as long as we could've," she added with a sniff of her own. Tears streamed down again, and she hiccuped. "W-We should've stayed. I know, s-sir. I know we could've stayed for at least another hour. B-but we had orders."

The Head of the House of Shepherd let out a groan. "We shouldn't have let this happen..." he muttered.

"I-I know, sir," she sniffed again.

It was then that another sob broke out, but not from the captain nor the lieutenant. It came from the halls outside.

Distressed as he was, the worried captain moved across the room and walked out.

There were many there.

His office was connected to the cafeteria for ease of access, so many had come to the biggest place where they could rant and eat to let out their frustration.

And Adam saw many of his crew in the cafeteria. Men and women alike were sobbing, holding each other like family. Men and women roared in anger, smashing their fists into plastic tables, severely denting them.

Hell, one of the magus was in flames, literally. That was probably bad, but he dismissed the scene, only making sure to call the magus out to see if he was alright.

'If our Duke is our father,' Adam thought to himself as he brought along his lieutenant to join the grieving cafeteria. 'Then Prince Ilcosvies was our brother.'

Ilcosvies had always been in the frontlines with the common soldier. It didn't matter the war was or how harsh it was, he went. He stood shoulder to shoulder with soldiers during the First Protoss-Terran War, not as a commander but a fellow brother-in-arms. He took hits that were meant for the common soldier. Carried water and food until he collapsed from exhaustion. He carried one wounded soldier for three days and three nights in the deepest territory. After the war was over, he went right back to protecting the common folk against rampant Heroic Spirits.

He stood before them in the ongoing war against the Protoss Coalition when the second war broke out. He led many against protoss warships in space. On the ground, he charged alongside them.

And today, he had sacrificed his very _soul_ to prevent more death, suffering his entire body disintegrate slowly in an agonizing pain. His magic stripped from him in the most violent of fashion. His very soul ... shattering before the eyes of his very son and subordinates.

 _The ultimate sacrifice._

...

Adam allowed himself to cry like a baby.

* * *

Inferno stared at the shriveled looking old man on his screen.

War? Did this idiot just declare war upon the entirety of Terminus Alliance?

But then again, they had dreadnoughts capable of tanking forty of his dreadnoughts by itself.

"So," he grinned as he stood up. "It's war, now is it?!" he laughed out loud. "Not exactly what I had been hoping for, but this is ... beyond my wildest dreams! We go to war!" He snapped to the comm officer. "I want all ships to start firing upon the newcomers!" he laughed out loud as he personally took over the helms of his flagship. He and the other dreadnoughts turned slowly, their spinal mass accelerator ready to pound away -.

And red missiles.

His mind froze for a second as he saw the radar completely get covered.

"The tracking system can't count!" one of the officers shouted. "It's in the hundreds... no, thousands! There's too many!"

The first of those missiles slammed into his flagship, and he gawked as he saw quarter of his ship get torn apart. But there was no time to run away as second missile slammed into the flagship's eezo core. The core didn't even explode. It simply disappeared along with another quarter of his ship, now in four pieces, and one of those pieces far away from him exploded.

And then the entire wall of those missiles slammed into his fleet.

* * *

Ilmensvies watched with rightful vengence burning in his heart as the kinetic missiles launched by the entirety of his own flagship reduce the invader's fleet to dust.

"All enemies have been terminated."

"Find any survivors," Otto commanded as he placed his hand on his grandfather's shoulder. "I'll take of things up here..."

The duke nodded. "You were always a good grandson," he muttered before he was escorted by several of his honorguards to one of the smaller transport ships within the dreadnought.

Otto watched his grandfather leave before he turned back to the command crew. "I'm taking command of the Einzbern force until the duke takes over. I want at least three dreadnoughts, ten battlecrusiers, and standard escorts per system that we control, and I want the remaining fleet to come here. I also want scouts out on the outer edge of our system. It's unlikely that these citadel raiders came here by their own means, so one of their relay must be in our system. I want it found, towed into deep space, and destroyed."

"Yes, sir!" the crew saluted before they shot off to their work.

"And get me those pathetic raider's leader. I want to interrogate him myself."

He then ordered another system wide communications to be opened. Once established, he stood in the command console of the dreadnought with a expressionless face. "This is Otto Tohsaka-Bahk. I have taken over in the distress of our duke. Enemy space fleet has been neutralized. If they have landed troops, I want them subdued. For each _head_ of the enemy soldier, I am personally offering one of my minor red prana crystals, which should be at a market value of a thousand ISC*."

The crew gawked, and some were subtly cursing their luck.

ISC, or Interstellar Credit, was the currency used in the Terran League. This is however different from intraplanetary currency that each planet has one of their own. At a thousand ISC, one head of those invaders were worth a veteran arcane engineer's annual salary.

No doubt a manhunt for the invaders -if it hadn't been organized already for invading the planet already- would be going up.

"I'm going to have to talk with our guests."

Suddenly, the mood on the command bridge turned from bitter to near-hostile.

They had forgotten, Otto noted.

The very same aliens that had attacked their home, and probably killed a lot of their friends and family if the planetary shield had been activated, were on their own ship.

"I'll determine whether or not they are of the same nation. If they are though ..." Otto chuckled. "Perhaps that war will happen."

* * *

Mordin was now officially scared.

The room that he and the others were staying in was one of the more luxuries rooms all connected by a single common room that had a view of the space outside.

And he had seen perhaps that was the pinnacle of terran technology.

His throat was dry. His pupils were dilated. His mind was blank. His legs were shaking. His back was wavering.

His will was broken.

And yet at the same time, he was invigorated. He was awed! He was inspired! He wanted to know more about them.

 _A planetary shield._

Truly, these terrans were beyond any Citadel members. The sheer power requirement alone for keeping up the shield for as long as he was looking at it was something that no race of the Citadel Council could achieve. Even if they united together, it would be impossible. It simply wasn't obtainable.

And then he saw something else that terrified him.

Ships of unknown origin firing dreadnought salvos at a constant rate at the shield. Were these the protoss? The ships were too far away from him to see any details, but compared to what he had heard and seen of terrans, these ships were lacking in size. And then these ships were blown away.

The doors of the common room slid open, and Mordin glanced. To his surprise, he saw Otto Tohsaka-Bahk.

"Ah, how can I help you, Primarch Tohsaka-Bahk?" he asked. From what he understood, Otto was a patriarch. He had a lot of responsibilities and a lot of power.

Something was wrong, though. The man seemed ... cold. There was a sense of coldness about him that didn't exist in their first few meetings.

"Tell me, Doctor Mordin," he asked. "Is it a common policy of the Citadel Council to attack worlds of neutral sovereign states after having signed a peace treaty?"

Mordin was shocked. "What? No, sir! There was never any incidents in our histories like that," he replied. "What prompts you to ask me this?"

"...My planet had been attacked by a fleet possessing your technology."

Mordin felt his stomach drop. It couldn't be, right? The Citadel Council had just signed a peace treaty with the Terran League. They wouldn't attack them!

"From what I could see already," Otto spoke as he walked up to Mordin's right and stared at the shielded planet. "Ilyasviel has already been bombarded by orbital strikes. If they struck our centers of populations, then I suspect death toll to be in the tens of millions."

"It couldn't be Citadel Council," Mordin assured Otto, but it sounded more like he was assuring himself. "Is it possible to see the ship schematics of the enemy fleet?" He had to know who attacked the terrans.

Otto nodded, and ordered pictures of the enemy fleet to be sent to the diplomat's common room via the hologram. Then he turned around as the room darkened. Mordin did so as well, and he saw a hologram of ...

"Terminus Alliance," Mordin said with a sigh of relief too quiet for Otto to pick up. Unlike Citadel Council's diverse dreadnought hulls, the dreadnoughts of the infamous Terminus Alliance had only one hull shaped like a curved bullet. It was infamous for its notoriously heavily armed midsection. "This is a Terminus Alliance dreadnought."

Otto nodded. "Thank you for the information," he said.

"What will happen now?"

Otto was silent for a few moments before he spoke up. "The duke has declared war upon the Terminus Alliance, and bowed to see the capital planet burn to nothingness. If you have relatives or friends there, I highly recommend you pull them out before the end of this month."

"Y-You would commit a massacre?!"

Otto glared. "You must understand, Doctor. This is not the first time that our planet here had been bombarded. We have already sent out our fleet once to decimate our enemy. This would be merely the second time we do so. And from what I remember of your codex, the Terminus Alliance is nothing more than warlords having banded together for mutual boost of power."

"But still, there are at least several billions of innocent civilians on that planet!"

"I think you misunderstand us. It has already begun. The Einzbern forces are gathering to strike against the Alliance. Nothing can stop us."

"Then what about your government, the Terran League? Surely, they won't allow this to happen!"

"Is it not a matter of whether or not they want this to happen, though I suspect they would want what we want as well. Terran League has three semi-independent sovereign states, one of which is the Dukedom of Northern Star Archipelago ruled by my family. We are allowed by the laws set forth in the founding of the Terran League to declare war upon those who have wronged us. By law, the Terran League cannot interfere. They can put sanctions on us, but how long can they do so when many of their warships depend on the very prana crystals that we produce? We are the societal and industrial heart of the Terran League. If anything, the Terran League would join us to destroy those who wronged us today." Then he made to leave the common room. "I suggest you contact anyone precious to you inside Terminus Alliance to leave quickly. There will be no mercy for anyone who stays to support them."

* * *

 **=-V-=**  
 **=V=**  
 **-v-**

* * *

"This is CNN News reporting live from Ilyasviel of the Northern Star Archipelago. Exactly three hours ago, Ilyasviel had been attacked by a fleet allegedly from the Terminus Alliance. They proceeded to orbitally strike at Ilyasviel. The death tolls are already in the millions, and a half of Ilyasviel's capital city Heracles had been reduced to craters."

The camera flickered to an aerial view of the city. It showed the circular shaped city, but it was clear that the eastern and southern portion of the city had been struck by orbital strikes from the giant craters that adorned the cityscape. The tall, white palace in the middle of the city remained untouched, but there were few boulders that had crashed into its beautiful structure, scarring it.

"Thankfully, the Einzberns activated their planetary shield, only one of four in existence, but it came at a heavy cost. Viewers may not know this but it is known that Einzbern's planetary system requires a magician capable of using Heavens Feel, the Third True Magic, to power the planetary shield. The information regarding the shield had been released scant few minutes ago. However, there hadn't been any Third Maigc users on the planet at the time. The Duke and Otto Tohsaka-Bahk were away on a diplomatic trip to the Citadel Council for the invasion of the turians while the eldest son of the duke was on the frontlines on Auriga holding the protoss back. We are not sure of how the planetary shield was activated without a Heaven's Feel user, but sources within the Einzbern military report that the duke's second son, the Dreadlord of Einzbern, Ilcosvies von Einzern had to sacrifice himself to activate the shield.

"Wait, we have incoming video of what is supposed to be Einzbern command center. It'll be on screen right now."

* * *

The audiences all over the world watched their screen flickered once and then twice before it showed a throne surrounded by many Einzbern officers. But they kept their distance as an old man, the duke of Northern Star Archipelago, slowly walked up to the golden throne at the back center of the room. The camera zoomed in and saw a burnt figure of what was supposed to be a man.

The duke deactivated the throne's shield with a wave of his hand. "M...My son," he whispered as his trembling hand hovered over the burnt left arm of the dead Einzbern.

He dared not touch it.

His hand moved back and forth, wanting to touch and yet being wary of touching such a fragile legacy of his second child.

Ilmensvies began to sob. "My s-son... My heir..." he croaked out as he fell to his knees. "Why... Why did you do this?" He sobbed openly. "My precious s-son. Why did you do this...?"

Sobs broke out in the room, but a single man broke through the crowd.

"S-Sir..." he spoke.

"... What is it?"

"I-I have his last words." With that, he pulled out his phone. "If you would like to hear it, sir. I-I'm sorry, but I was not able to get a video of his last moments..."

Ilmensvies stared at the man with his tear-filled eyes and wrinkle-filled face before he nodded. "Play it."

 _"It's my last order, son." Pause. "I hereby declare you, Lucian Tohsaka, my 15 year old bastard son, as my legitimized child. You are now Lucian von Einzbern. As such, with my death and by the Primogeniture law of the Northern Star Archipelago Dukedom ..."_

 _"Goddamn it, don't do it, dad!" Sobs. "You promised me have me see grandfather!" Sniffles in the background. "You promised to teach me all you know! We can't talk with each other if you're dead!" There were poundings as Lucian struck at the throne's shield with his fists._

 _"...You are now the Heir of the von Einzbern. So do me proud, get married, learn magecraft, and be happy. That's my last order. Oh, and tell Otto and pops that I love them..." There was a pause as did everyone. "Dreadlord of von Einzbern..."_

 _"NOOOOO!"_

 _"Signing out."_

 _Click_

 _"GAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!"_

 _BANG BANG BANG BANG! "NOOOO, DAD!" Lucian roared as he pounded at the shields with all he had._

The screams of both father and son didn't stop for a whole minute in the recording, and every single officer broke out into heavy sobs.

Ilmensvies began to sob. "Ah... my son, my son...! My son...!" he sobbed. "My... stupid, dutiful... son!" He then began to look around frantically. "I buried his mother without a body. I refuse to have it repeated with him! Someone get me a coffin-!"

Then he froze as his son's body began to crack.

"No... Please..."

The body then collapsed into a pile of ash on the throne.

Ilmensvies watched the scene with a lost look to his face. The sobs grew harder as those present called out to their dead heir.

"...Someone get me a box."

It took a minute before someone approached the old, sobbing duke with a plain white box. He took it, and began to scoop his son's ashes with his own hands.

* * *

The screen changed back to the reporter, who was crying over in a corner, unaware that she was now on air.

"Sarah, you're on air."

The reporter quickly wiped away her tears with a tissue with a quickly muttered thank you before she stood before the camera again.

Not that anyone cared nor did her crying matter. Everyone was crying too.

* * *

However, there were more pragmatic and less emotional bunch that saw this. Namely, these people were the politicians of the Terran League. It wasn't because they were cold hearted bastards that they didn't feel as much as others. If anything, they felt more.

Ilcosvies von Einzbern was called the Terror of Rebels and the Dreadlord of Einzbern because he helped to subjugate many rebels and did it ruthlessly. More often than not, he had saved many politicians and their families from harm by taking out terrorist groups and insurrectionists.

No, they were too busy thinking about the consequences of the coming war, even if they themselves felt a pang of sympathy and pain for their savior.

Ilmensvies von Einzbern had called upon Article III, which stated that any semi-sovereign states within the Terran League could declare war upon other nation-states if given enough reason to go to war for. Orbital bombardment of Ilyasviel was one such reason. But what was more terrifying was that the Northern Star Archipelago was but one such state.

There were three in total.

 _Dukedom of the Northern Star Archipelago_

 _The Black White Conglomerate_

 _Vjanyaguer Empire_

And they were all allied with each other. If Einzberns declared war due to having been invaded, then the Black White Conglomerate and the Vjanyaguer Empire would gladly join to prove their worth, never mind the fact that those three states, each a fifth of the Terran League, would be able to take over planet with the conclusion of war.

Together, they possessed nearly 700 dreadnoughts, double that possessed by the League's navy.

In fact, the military might of the Three was what enabled the foundation of Terran League to be formed. It was the sheer might they possessed that the public nicknamed them "the Three Friendly Warring States."

It would be the biggest warfare that Terran League would have participated in since the end of the Expansionist and the Warring Stars Era.

One such politician thinking of the consequences of this war was Terran League's President Tyler ab Rogiyal-York. He was a tall man in his late sixties, though he possessed the body of a muscle builder. A staunch moderate, he had gained the support of over half of the planets in the Terran League, earning him his presidency.

He was also a personal friend of Ilcosvies von Einzbern.

And he was also one of those who had believed that the man would die on the frontlines.

He had grieved openly for an hour for his friend, the longest ever since he had grieved for his parents, but his duty took place first.

One of the subjects he was thinking hard about was the subject of war.

From outsider's perspective, the Terran League had an awkward system of government. How does one work with three semi-independent states that can easily overpower the League by themselves? Or how does it work without a strong central government?

The answer was that it only got itself involved in interstate or international subjects. Taxes, boundaries, colony rights, and so on.

Subject of war definitely fit into the bill.

But Duke Ilmensvies had declared war using Article III of the League Constitution, which allowed the duke to declare war without having to worry about the League's central government attempting to stop him.

Tyler was not interested in stopping the war. He was worried about having to drag the whole of Terran League into war.

Ilyasviel was a planet of heavy population with more than 20 billion with higher education graduation rate of 70%. It was one of the most important center of Terran League, if the most had Gaia not been the most important.

An attack upon such planet was not just a small time pirate raid or skirmish; it was a declaration of war to the entirety of Terran League.

However, he had another war to worry about: the Second Protoss-Terran War. Almost all of the Terran League's naval assets were tied in fighting off the protoss at Auriga and very few other border systems that required constant patrol. The League could not spare the expenses nor the manpower to fund another war.

But not going to war is going to get a lot of resentment from everyone.

So he had to support the war efforts to visibly make an impact...

He brought his office's comm panel. "Hey Rebecca, yeah it's me, Tyler. Can you call the people on the list I am about to send you?"

* * *

Back in the Terminus Alliance territory, all of the warlords were cursing their luck.

Aria was especially afraid.

Her space station of Omega was considered one of the most strategic points in Terminus Alliance due to its relative closeness and farness that was just right between the rest of the Terminus systems and the Citadel systems via relay.

At the same time, it was now the worst place to be. By position, it was one of the closer systems to Terran League's territory, and thus making it a hot target.

She possessed four dreadnoughts. A large number before the Terrans had come into play.

Herself, her station, and her fleet were unlikely going to survive.

Maybe she could capitulate to the terrans when they came, hoping that they will keep her as the manager of the station? But that risked her life upon the chance that the terrans would keep her alive. In fact, she had heard the declaration of war and the terran promise of burning their worlds.

What was she supposed to do?!

* * *

Ilmensvies sat upon his throne.

Situated inside the throne room of the Einzbern Palace, it was usually a place filled with people.

Today though, there was no one there.

So he sat there in the darkness with only the moon light filtering through the windows high above like a cathedral.

"..."

Ilmensvies slowly lifted his head from his hands and hands to look up.

"I didn't expect you to be here."

"No one does."

"What do you want?"

"You're angry."

"Of course I am," the duke growled as he stood up. "My son was killed!"

"Perhaps I can help."

"What can you do?"

"You seem to forget that it was through your son's effort that we're even enjoying this conversation. That and he is also my friend. I was there when he was born. I was there when he first walked. I was there when he needed a shoulder to cry after he saw his mother get obliterated into nothingness."

The duke fumed. "I asked: what do you want?"

"You do know about my son being your heir, correct?"

The duke paled, his anger forgotten and suddenly a lower priority.

"He's half-Disciple?"

Disciples. They were the name given to the creatures born of Ilyasviel the Planet in an effort to copy the True Ancestors and Dead Apostle Ancestors of Gaia. There were only nine of them, compared to Gaia's twenty seven, but each were strong, if not stronger, as the Dead Apostle Ancestors.

"Try a quarter, but sure."

"...Why are you here?"

The creature stepped out of the shadows of the throne room. It was a creature that towered over Ilmensvies. It stood on thousands of humans hands and arms that crawled like a mutilated centipede. On top of this creature was a woman. She sat upon a fleshy throne with a diadem made out of shining blue quartz. She wore nothing, but tribal-tattooed body of the woman erected no response from Ilmensvies or even the silent, invisible guards.

"My lover has been killed. My mother has been wounded. My family has suffered," the woman hissed as she leaned forward. "If anything, I am here to demand that you include all of the Disciples into this war."

"No."

The Disciple snarled. "What?!"

"If I kill all of them and their children, and then go on to destroy their nation into tiny fragments to be our subordinates for all eternity, it will be a better than having to release _all_ of you to them. You and the others will end up devouring all of the planets they possess until everything there is lifeless."

"You dare deny me my _right_?!"

"I won't if you promise to only involve those directly involved and that you wouldn't swallow up those planets. You, your son -now my heir-, and maybe just one more."

A pause as the two regarded each other.

"...Ho, you still have that ridiculous spine of yours even after all these years."

"It's this spine of mine that subjugated you and your siblings when I first came here. Perhaps I should introduce your face to the ground again for seducing my son."

The woman looked offended before she laughed. "Seduce? He was the one who came to me. Wouldn't leave me alone for a whole year!"

Ilmensvies scoffed. "Like I can believe that you're even capable of reciprocating emotion on human level."

Her black eyes gleamed. "I'm here to offer my power for our revenge for no ulterior motive. I think that alone tells much."

"...My limitation stands. I may be angered, but I am not blinded by my hatred to unleash a monster like you by the spades."

"Integrity of a holy god," she grumbled. "Fine," she said as she held her hand up. A purple fire lit up. "I, Clara iL Grey, the Bone Queen of Ilyasviel's Disciples, the First Disciple, ... wife of Ilcosvies von Einzbern, and the mother of Lucian von Einzbern, hereby pledge that I will abide by the limitations set forth by Ilmensvies von Einzbern." With her piece said, she banished the fire.

"Looking to cement yourself as my son's wife I see." There was pause before his right index finger lit up at the tip in white. He waved his index finger silently, leaving behind a simple circle with an 'X' beneath it. "I, Ilmensvies von Einzbern, the Duke of Northern Star Archipelago, and the practitioner of the Third True Magic, do accept your pledge."

"Good, because I'm bringing the Demon."

"You bitch!"

* * *

While his grandfather was making deals with the devil, Otto was being the devil.

He stood before one of the few survivors of the Terminus Alliance fleet in a dark chamber. There was only a dim light. The man, a turian, was bloodied in its blue blood. Its blood splattered all around the floor with a single etched rune circle underneath it.

"P-Please, I don't know anything...!" the turian begged pitifully as it tried to crawl out of the wide circle.

"Your own records show you as a lieutenant commander of your navy," Otto spoke with a drawl. "You will tell me everything you know about your worlds."

"Please, t-they'll kill my family if they find out. Please, please not my family."

Otto scoffed and crouched down just outside of the circle, some three meters away from the turian.

"I don't care about your family, lieutenant commander Rumanov. My home is burning, and I want my revenge to be _thorough_ and _clear_. Now talk!"

"N-No.. My f-family..!"

Otto sighed as he stood up. He snapped his fingers.

The rune circle lit up and began to intensify.

"You should fear for your sanity before your family."

"NOOOO! GAHHHHHH!"

Otto turned around when one of his subordinates approached him, completely ignoring the lightshow and the scream of the tortured behind him. "How goes the interrogation on others?"

The woman shook her head. "They were too low in the ranking for much information. They broke immediately when we demanded information about their planet. Even told us everything about their relatives in the higher ups."

Otto che'd. "Kill them. I don't want any of those filth alive. At least this one is hanging on for his family."

There was a bang. "Sir, another bounty hunter brought in a live subject. Presumed to be a captain of their navy."

Otto's face split in two as his grin stretched across his face. "Bring them to me." He snapped his fingers. "Get rid of this garbage too. Make it as slow and messy as possible."

A man wearing black vest and black face mask appeared from the shadows. "Should I donate him to the Unspeakables?"

Otto nodded approvingly. "Yes, that is for the best."

* * *

 **Citadel Council**

 _ **A days later...**_

"This is bad," Sparatus muttered as he replayed the declaration of war. "Those stupid idiot pirates."

The declaration of war and the involvement of the Terminus Alliance in terran affairs hadn't reached the Citadel Council until just few short hours ago. And this was because one of the scientist with the terrans had warned them to pull out all of Citadel resources within

Tevos was frowning along with her colleagues.

They had never truly tasted the might of the Terran League, nevermind a single state within it. But it must be substantial if they were able to blow away nearly fifty dreadnoughts without a care and still declare war after whatever losses they suffered.

"It was also a good time, perhaps, to see if the might of the terrans," she spoke outloud.

Valern looked at her as if she had gone mad. "Tevos dear, have you struck your head on the way here?"

The bluntness of his question shocked the other two.

"What?"

"They have a planetary shield covering the entire planet that was able to hold out against fifty dreadnoughts' consecutive orbital strikes for at least ten minutes. Might of the Terrans? It is fitting you say it that way. Too advance. Cannot comprehend power requirements alone. Complexity of whatever engineering is mind-boggling. We have seen the might already. If this is their best, then they are leagues above us. If this is their worst, I wonder why they bothered with us to send a diplomatic party."

Tevos nervously nodded. Perhaps the shock of the declaration of war had rattled her mind. Even if it had come at her blunt, what Valern had said was true.

"I still suggest we send cloaked STG ships and Spectres to observe them."

"Agreed."

* * *

 **System: Irisviel**

"We're dropping out of warp drive in 3 ... 2... 1...!"

There was a tremor as the rainbow of time-space fabric of the w-space braked down to a near instantaneous stop. "All operating systems are clear and at optimal condition. System-wide IFF signal is being broadcasted in standard League diplomacy frequency."

"Good job, pilot."

"Just doing my job and moving you along, ambassador," the pilot replied. "I was actually surprised, though. The League rarely hires a private taxi like me. This is because of the ... attack, right?"

The ambassador, a man of dark skin dressed in blue and green of the Diplomacy Corps, nodded.

"Well, I hope whatever you're here to say, it better be a good one. And uop!, they seem like they got my signal."

"This is _NSAN-E Emiya_ greeting _Blue Angelfish_. You have broadcasted on the standard Dipolmacy Corps frequency yet you do not match the hull of the said corp. Please explain."

"This is _Blue Angelfish_. I was hired by the League to zippy the ambassador I have onboard. His name is Zandala Hyjyuis, over."

"Ah, you are taxi'ing ambassadar Hyjyuis? Welcome to the system then. Be on high alert though, all of the patrols are on the edge. Make your way over to the space elevator."

"Roger that, Emiya." He turned to the ambassador. "That went well."

"Yes. But please hurry. I must talk with the duke before they set off on their war."

"Got it, got it."

The space elevator of Ilyasviel had been heavily guarded with shields and turrets, which was the only reason it was spared from the invasion force. Designed like a spiral cocoon with a oval space center in the middle connecting the planet with outer space with a single elevator barely forty meters wide in radius, it was small compared to some of the other space stations or even space elevators. However, the Einzberns had prided themselves in quality rather than quantity.

So when Blue Angelfish approached the station, the station's cocoons slowly unraveled to make a opening just right for the spaceship.

The ambassador, despite the seriousness of his business, couldn't help but admire the fluidity of the space station's machines.

Then they were docked.

He nodded to the pilot. "Thank you for your service, captain."

The pilot mock-saluted him, friendly. "Don't mention it. I'm getting paid."

The ambassador let out a brief, deep chuckle. "Indeed."

He walked out of the spaceship into a large open dock where hundreds of different spaceships were docking and leaving. In particular, freighters were visibly everywhere, unloading commodities and taking on another commodities by the tons.

'Even with the destruction of half of the capital county, trade goes on, it seems,' he thought. Then he was drawn back to his ground level where a team of three men and woman were waiting for him.

"Ambassador Hyjyuis?" the man in the front asked.

He nodded back. "Yes, that's me. And you are...?"

"We're the welcome crew for dignitaries that are arriving. I apologize for not meeting you right away, sir."

He waved it off. "It's completely fine, but I do need to meet with the duke immediately."

"Of course, sir. Please follow us."

They took a private elevator attached to the side of the main elevator, and zipped down to the planet's surface.

There, they were greeted by more courtiers of the duke, who tended to his needs as he and they made their way to the duke's Throne Room.

Upon standing in front of the ten meter tall, golden set of doors, he checked himself and nodded to the guard.

"Ambassador Zandala Hyjyuis of the Terran League!" the guard announced as he opened door with only one hand and surprising amount of strength.

The Throne Room was half the size of a football field. It was huge, and it was high. It was like a European Cathedral in its majesty that few buildings in the entire League had tried to replicate but failed to do. He could _feel_ glory, power, and wealth that almost radiated in this room.

The attention of the busy Throne Room shifted over towards him, and he slowly walked up to the dais upon which the throne and the duke sat. He bowed to the duke down to his waist before straightening back up. "Greetings, Your Grace."

"It has been a long time, Mr. Zandala. Twenty years since I personally saw to your scholarship."

The ambassador smiled. "Indeed, sir. And it may be the reason why they sent me here instead of another ambassador."

"Then speak. What the League want in this war?"

"...If we may speak privately, sir?"

The duke looked around. He and the ambassador were surrounded by a large number of the Einzbern family as well as his courtiers and vassals who had come to him to offer their full support. "I need a moment."

Everyone nodded, and left the hall in seconds.

"Now, talk."

"Privately, the President of the League is concerned about whether or not Your Grace intends to make this war a total war. He also expresses concern over whether or not Your Grace intends to .. absorb more planets into your duchy. Publicly, he and the entirety of the League's Senate and Representative offer their full logistical support including ammunition, ration, and fuel."

The duke nodded. "I respect his queries and his support. Now, you know me, boy, and because I do not want to intrigue my way around this, I'll be frank with you." The duke slightly leaned forward. "By the time the war ends, there will no 'Terminus Alliance' left. I and the other two will split the territory among us while giving some over to the League for their military and colonization administration outposts. I intend to fully subjugate and have these aliens answer and pay by painful dividends for what they did here."

But it hardly answered the first question.

The nervous ambassador nodded. "I thank you for your frankness, sir," he replied. "I must ask, though... and the President was critical about having me ask you this... do you intend to allow the deployment of _all_ of your fleets? Or for that matter, the current head of the Emiya Clan?" he pressed.

The duke leaned back, allowing his back to rest upon the throne.

He understood the concerns. The Terran League was a loose confederate between the Three Friendly Warring States and the fractured members of the former Gaian Alliance, which became the body of the Terran League today. Gaian League was never strong in their military, depending more on their prestige and piety they received as the holder of Gaia, the birth planet of the humans. As such, its lack of military carried over when it became the Terran League. And with the current Second Protoss-Terran War raging on and devouring the League's naval forces by the dreadnoughts every week, the policing of the rest of the League's space territory, including the Three's, were entirely dependent upon the Three's naval forces.

If the Three's entire naval force left for war...

"I shall leave behind ten patrol fleets to police the territories outside of mine."

The ambassador quickly bowed. "Thank you, Your Grace! ...And Your Grace?"

"Hmm?"

"Please give them hell."

The duke scoffed. "Hell will be a nice vacation compared to what I'm about to do."

* * *

Later that day, the ambassador was summoned to the Throne Room, and upon entering, he froze.

The duke sat upon his golden throne without much expression, but it was not the duke that made him freeze.

To the duke's right was the Emiya Clan head. Known as the only human capable of fighting True Dead Apostles Ancestors one-on-one along with a bloodthirsty personality, he was perhaps one of the most dangerous man the ambassador hoped to never meet.

To the duke's left was the head of the Tohsaka Clan, Otto Tohsaka-Bahk. Ambassador met the man several times. Another dangerous man.

Behind the duke was the head of the House of Shepherds, the guard dogs of the Einzberns ever since their reformation. Adam Shepherd looked like he had seen better days with those dark bags under his eyes, but he stood tall and strong. Ambassador knew that he had been ordered to retreat as per the Drealord's order before his death, but he hadn't known that the Shepherd head took his "failure" so heavily.

Alongside the wide red and white carpet were dignitaries that he had only heard about before.

The Prince of the Vjanyaguer Empire, draped in his gold and red robes and a black turban, stood along with his entourage of masked assassins and knights.

The twin heir of the Black White Conglomerate with their red-hued black hair and East Asian features were famous for their pranks and absolute destruction of pirates in their region of control.

And there were so much more. It was almost as if every single planet had sent a representative.

He quickly moved to stand at the back to not draw attention.

There were cameras stationed all along the edge of the room. Drones equipped with silent flying hovered in the air, taking in the entire procession.

"Ambassadors from all over the League, I welcome you in our time of need," the duke began. "It has been a long time since I had called upon my allies and my vassals, but Ilyasviel itself had been attacked and my heir had been killed. I have decided to finally give into my need for revenge, and have called you all to honor the pledges we have made."

Emiya was the first to bow. "I, Emiya Kuroshi, hereby honor the pledge we have made to our family, liege, and friend."

Tohsaka tilted his head. "I, Otto Tohsaka-Bahk, hereby honor the pledge we have made with our family, ally, and friend."

Shepherd pounded his chest in a salute. "I, Adam Shepherd, hereby honor the pledge we have made to our liege!"

The Prince of Vjanyaguer Empire stepped forward with a ornate gold spear in his hand. "I, Slioma Chavrujir, hereby honor the pledge on behalf of my family to my ally."

The twins stepped forward, and spoke as one. "We, the Twin Heir of the Black White Conglomerate, hereby honor the pledge on behalf of our state to our ally and friend."

And so on, the pledges went until two pools of darkness opened up on the red carpet. From them, two figures rose up.

One was a woman of infinite beauty that radiated killing intent in degrees he had never felt before.

The other was a big beast of a man. He only wore a simple fur pelt around his waist, covering down to his knees. He had more tattoo on his body than there was bare skin, and all of the tattoos were malicious in their design and red background.

"And I, the Bone Queen First Disciple of Ilyasviel, hereby declare my allegiance to the Duke in this war."

"I, the Demon and the Fifth Disciple of Ilyasviel, hereby declare my allegiance to the Duke in this war."

Everyone, including the ambassador, gawked.

Avatars of the planet had just declared their allegiance to a mortal.

Then a third pool opened up. From it, a man with white hair and red eyes like that of Ilmensvies rose up. "... I, Lucian von einzbern, the heir of the von Einzbern and the Tenth Disciple of Ilyasviel, hereby declare my all to the Duke."

There was a silence that shocked the entire room.

The duke scoffed. "I was wondering where you were after the funeral."

The heir smiled. "I ... needed some time to think, Your Grace."

"Then follow in your father's step and call me Pops, or grandpa. I hate to hear such words from my own grandson," he replied with a scowl.

"Sure ... grandfather."

* * *

What followed the Meeting of Pledges of Allegiances was a war council consisting of representatives of the presumed big donators and supporters of the upcoming war.

This secondary meeting took place away from the Throne Room where the other representatives were allowed to stay to mingle and discuss.

This meeting took place in a smaller chamber with more toned down exuberance. It was a round chamber, probably five meters tall and ten meters in radius. At the center of the chamber was a round desk made out of one solid, white marble piece and etched in gold with many langauges all stating the same thing: "May this meeting be productive." The desk itself was about 3 meters in radius. The room was lit up by spirally designed panels of light in smooth curves on the ceiling and the corners between the ceiling and the wall and the wall and the floor. The green and white light gave off a calming feeling. It was most likely designed intentionally as such.

As the representatives took their seats after the duke did so, Ambassador Hyjyuis couldn't help but feel ... overwhelmed. Here he sat, a junior ambassador by experience, surrounded by the big players of the Terran League.

Scratch that, he was scared as hell because the Demon of Ilyasviel was sitting next to him.

"I understand that this war effort will be costly initially ... and fortituous once we claim many of their planets for the grieviences they brought upon us," Ilmensvies spoke. "Know that the distribution of possessed systems and planets will be divided evenly after we take three garden worlds."

It was the Prince of Vjanyaguer Empire that objected first. "Surely you don't intend to up your own allies in the dividends of this war, Your Grace?" he asked in his thick Jap-Indian accent.

The duke shook his head. "I have no such intentions. The worlds I intend to take are those I intend to convert as gateway worlds."

Murmurs and speculations broke out.

Gateway worlds, Hyjyuis thought. As of right now, there exists only twelve such worlds. To be a gateway world, which was connected to other gateway worlds, the planet needed to have in possession a much larger version of the Stargates, the artifacats left by the Alterans. The Stargates left by the Alterans were, fortunately, functioning -all of them. But they weren't big enough for spaceships beyond a personal intrasystem "spacecars," so terrans had made their own larger version, even if they were similar to Mass Relays in their lack of dialing capability. They had to physically turn the entire worldgate towards the general direction of the target to form a connection. At least it was instantaneous.

Unlike the Alterans, who printed out Stargates like paper, no terran organization or individual has such power. To create one Stargate involved tens of thousands of hours of manual and technical labor and materials that cost in the upper billions of ISK, which was the same cost as a space station. In fact, production of a single Worldgate was equivalent to permanently boosting a state's GDP by nearly fifteen percent. For Ilmensvies to announce that he was intending to make three such worlds...

It was also how he got to Irisviel system as fast as he did. The average FTL speed of a terran spaceship was around forty lightyears per one Earth day. Fastest ships were in the scale of eighty to ninety lightyears per one day. But Irisviel was more than three hundred lightyears from Sol. Even if he took the fastest diplomat ship Sol had to offer, it would take a journey of 3 days minimum.

The prince remained silent before he scoffed. "Ambitious as always, Your Grace. I will accept this," he commented before he withdrew his objection.

Hyjyuis knew why the prince withdrew his objection.

Worldgates required a special substance. The Element 150. Despite its size and force, it was stable and found in only special corners of the universe where gravity was higher than normal. Artificially creating them was out of the question due to some technical difficulties and the lack of technology involved. Worldgate production required a literal ton of the stuff, and they were the reason for the worldgates were so expensive.

And Vjanyaguer Empire was in possession of the only two planets where they were mined.

By announcing that he was going to produce three worldgates, he was basically telling the prince that he was going to be boosting not just the Northern Star Archipelago's economy but also that of the Vjanyaguer Empire.

It was the Twins who objected next. "What about us? We are willing to help regardless of the lack of pay because we are friends, Your Grace, but payment on such similar scale as that of the Empire would go a long way."

"I intend to make sure that no taxes will be put on any businesses and government transports for two decades after completion of the worldgates."

"...We accept."

It was his turn.

He stood up. "As I stated before, Your Grace, I and the League's Central is concerned about the lack of ..."

Ah... politics. Why did he get into this messy business of behind-the-doors-negotiation again?

* * *

Mordin stared at the site of destruction wrought by the Terminus Alliance. There were multiple craters in the eastern portions of what was supposed to be capital city of this vibrant world.

He knew that the duke was showing this to him and the entire Citadel exchange group as a case in point for their casus belli invasion into Terminus.

He hadn't known when he first talked with Otto about the sheer destruction. And to hear what was sacrificed to put up that shield...

He felt sick.

He felt disgusted.

He had nearly condemned the terrans for starting a war, but this scene before him was nothing but a declaration of war! This was atrocity that even the Citadel Council would not forgive.

 _This_ was the massacre that he had accused the humans of attempting, yet this was done by the hands of the Terminus Alliance. Hundreds of millions dead! For any tier 1 civilization, this would be close to wiping out a continent! If the Einzberns hadn't cleared up the dust storms, it would have led to an ice age as well as the clouds covered up the skies and temperature plummeted as the clouds absorbed all of the sunlight and heat.

"Shit," he heard one of the exchange philosopher mutter. "This is messed up."

Messed up didn't quite sum it up, Mordin thought. But the sentiment was there.

"So Terminus finally dug their own grave."

Couldn't be said better. "I heard from Tohsaka-Bahk that they intend to wipe out the Terminus Alliance as a nation."

"That's perfectly fine with me," an Asari scientist by the name of Relli T'Uni scoffed. "It'll do the rest of the galaxy good to see those scums gone."

Couldn't be said any better.

* * *

 _Reaction of the declaration of war varied depending on where one was from. Citizens of the Citadel Council were intrigued and afraid. Terminus Alliance was only one or two relay jump from more than tenth of the Citadel territory. Denizens of the Terminus Alliance were frantically putting up defense or fleeing._

 _Terrans of the League?_

 _They were in a bloodrage unlike anything the species had experienced._

 _The total death toll of the Ilyasviel Orbital Bombing of 215 SC (Sol Calendar) was in the hundreds of millions, and most of the Terran League was connected to Ilyasviel either by blood relative or friends. So with more than a hundred million dead, everyone in the entire League had lost someone directly or had someone who lost someone on Ilyasviel. The death of a hundred million had pulled the entire bickering humanity into one bundle._

 _Half of the Core Worlds were demanding a counterattack on part of the Terran League while the other half were simply proposing to allow the ruthless Einzbern to deal with the attackers as they saw fit._

 _The Black White Conglomerate and Vjanyaguer Empire had joined in on the war on the grounds of upholding their three century long alliance._

 _On March 5th of 215 SC, the might of the Three Warring States, no longer friendly, jumped into the first Terminus System with five hundred sixty dreadnoughts, ninety carriers with a hundred fighters each, three thousand five hundred battlecruisers, five hundred freighters, sixty thousand frigate-class escorts, and fifty million ground troops. Each soldier and warship were in the color of their homeworld. Those of the Northern Star Archipelago were in white and red. Those the Black White Conglomerate in black and white. Those of the Vjanyaguer Empire were in gold and green._

 _By Citadel standards, all of the dreadnoughts were super-dreadnoughts, or Titans as some were calling them. Each battlecruisers lacked the shield strength of the dreadnoughts/Titans nor did they possess the sheer armaments of their bigger cousins, making them weaker targets, but they had the same firepower of the Citadel dreadnoughts without needing to turn to aim thanks to their omnidirectional plasma and energy turrets. The frigates varied between standard, assault, electronic warfare. And all ground troops were equipped in the Three's standard arms and armor._

 _The sheer size of the fleet was something that had not been deployed since the First Protoss-Terran War, and Citadel had never seen anything like it._

* * *

Races of the Citadel tuned in the moment the first battle was reported. The single news crew from the Citadel Central News held up their camera in the face of the Might of the Terrans.

The first ship to enter was a single ship in gold and white. It was shaped like two boomerang that had been attached together facing each other. The defense fleet immediately locked unto the ship, and began to fire.

The ship did not try to dodge. Instead, it sat there, and began to gather a form of red energy ball.

Then just mere seconds after the energy ball turned white and caved inward, it was destroyed by a single well-placed dreadnought shot.

"Umm, it seems that the alleged terran ship has been destroyed," the reporter replied from behind the camera. The camera turnedto the reporters. "I don't know what that was ab- holy shit!"

The camera swerved back to where the ship had been destroyed, and watched as hundreds of thousands of spatial distortions rippled in bubbles across space.

And then there were just there.

A fleet that formed a wall simply by existing. The camera was already trying to count the number of ships it was seeing, and in seconds, the count had risen above a hundred thousand.

"I-It's the terran fleet!" the reporter squeaked. "H-holy spirits, this is ridiculous!"

Dreadnoughts longer than five Destiny Ascencions put together lined up by the hundreds. Their dark metal hulls glistened like predators in the void of space even with the other colors they sported. Then there were literally thousands of smaller ships. Unlike the bulkier dreadnoughts, the frigates were just menacingly shaped. Many of them were shaped like animals with "claws" and "teeth." Many were painted black and red with only small portions of it being painted in other colors.

Watching the frigates from afar was like watching blood drops speed by. An omen of death.

They swarmed space like locusts, ready to devour.

And this locust intended to devour the Alliance.

"T-This is the might of the terrans," she whispered in awe and horror. To think that Citadel almost waged war with these people. "The terrans have started their invasion into Terminus Alliance territory!"


	7. Chapter 7

**Fixed on 12/23/2015 due to missing scene  
Fixed again on 7/8/2016. Grammar, spelling, and stuff.**

* * *

Tevos, Valern, and Sparatus watched a fleet that dwarfed the entirety of the Citadel Council's naval forces jump into U-4152 under the control of the deceased Terminus Warlord Inferno. It was this system that was the staging area for Inferno's raid into terran territory, and as such, held many logistical values not only for possessing a Primary Relay but also because to keep a fleet that big waiting and active, there had been many facilities ranging from repair stations to hydroponics orbiting the system's only habitable planet.

It was not just the three Councilors who were watching, though. Any and every individual who had a stake in the military, security, and technology were watching the live feed coming from the sole CCN reporters in the system. This included nearly all of Turian Hierarchy and Salarian Union's higher-ups.

Sparatus felt his heart beat a steady rhythm.

He hadn't forgotten what meeting "Gilgamesh" had been like. He hadn't forgotten the invisible and invincible power that the golden haired terran had exuded like an avalanche.

Due to the short period between then and now, he hadn't found out anything about terrans in general, much as Gilgamesh outside of what he had been told, but he had found at least one.

Gilgamesh belonged to a group of terrans that had _resurrected_ and were _immortals_. He was merely one of many, and not even their strongest terran.

Because apparently, that title belonged to the very man who had declared war upon the Terminus Alliance.

That frail looking terran that commanded the strongest force within the Terran League along with a fifth of its territory.

He may not be a scientist like Valern or a politician like Tevos, but he was a soldier before he was anything else.

And the turian soldier within him _demanded_ to learn about this possible opponent. It _demanded_ he curb his ego and pride even to give his people a slight advantage of what was to come.

Calculate everything and anything without the slightest emotional input. Only logic.

He aimed to do just that as soon as this battle started.

The reporter who was explaining the recent events between the Terran League and the Citadel Council paused and held up a finger. "We have an incoming message from the terran fleet, audio only. It'll be playing in 3.. 2.. 1.."

There was a pause as a bit of static broke through the speakers. "Greetings, Terminus Alliance and its allies. My name is Ilmensvies von Einzbern, the duke of the very planet that you and your pirates have fired their cannons upon. As such, I have only this to say to you... _Have you prayed to your gods yet_?"

Then the message cut out.

As soon as the message cut out, a single super-dreadnought painted in brick red and grayish white lumbered forward.

The camera zoomed in on the lone super-dreadnought.

Flashes.

Balls of light were surrounding the super-dreadnought by the dozens in all manner of colors. They formed out of nowhere and stayed with the super-dreadnought like flying fritizy pets that the salarians popularized half a century ago.

The lights elongated into thin beam-like structures.

Then without warning, they sprung forth with the power of an exploding star. It was too fast for any of the denizens of the Terminus and Citadel Council to track, though their computers did their best.

When the lights struck the Terminus dreadnoughts...

The balls of light exploded in a multitude of colors. They became min-novas, obliterating anything and everything that stood in their way.

Everyone watched in awe, even the terrans, as the stars themselves appeared among the defensive fleet's midst, disintegrating anything that was close to them and shredding and crushing everything else.

Sparatus blinked.

"Terrans weaponized supernovas?" Valern muttered in disbelief.

"...I think they did," Sparatus replied as he pinched the bridge of his nose.

How were you supposed to protect yourself against a supernova, never mind a whole broadside of it?

* * *

Ilmensvies grunted.

While the Third True magic, the Heaven's Feel, had given the necessary magic required to boost his Starlight Paradise magecraft to its utmost limit. But having done so, his body had taken a toll.

He waved off the servants as they finished wiping the last of the blood that had dribbled down from his nose and mouth.

"Can't believe this is the best I can do," he grumbled. "I am definitely not getting any younger."

He could feel his body weaken with each burst of Un-Nova that he threw at the defenders without mercy. The feeling was like that of shredding skin, except everywhere throughout his body; a single being was simply not supposed to make plays with powers as he did without consequence.

Otto chuckled. "It's definitely better than what you were able to do half a century ago, grandfather," he replied. "If I remember correctly, you weren't able to create an explosion of that size even when you had pushed yourself then as you have done now, and you tossed out five in total! I think this is a significant improvement."

"Bah. All I did was stack Overload spells on top of each other thirteen times on a single Greek explosive spell before imbuing its properties into one of my lights. If five such actions give me a bloody nose, I'm not doing well at all," the Duke grumbled back.

Otto scoffed. "Your students can't even stack three Overloads for a single spell to be imbued upon solid objects, never mind light, grandfather. I think you should give yourself some credit."

"How about you?"

"...'

"You can't stack three?"

"...I can stack three."

"But you've been slacking, haven't you?"

"I was busy keeping the politicians in line."

"I do that all the time, and I still improve my magecraft. You've been slacking, grandson. Once we're done wiping these aliens out of their own yard, you and I will have some training session."

Otto grumbled as minor depression set in, and he should be.

No one in his family should be slacking, and if they did, he'll personally whip them up into shape.

* * *

Then the entire fleet moved. Fast moving frigates moved to disable any space station or orbital defense platforms that the planet might have.

On the other hand, the super-dreadnoughts, three of them, stayed and turned towards the Mass Relay.

"What are those dreadnoughts doing?" the reporter asked herself. Then her face paled as the super-dreadnoughts began to visibly power up. Purple lines glowed ominously before the three super-dreadnoughts all fired a single laser beam almost as thick as a small corvette upon the Mass Relay. The Relay held out for a split second before its entire structure gave away to the attack, breaking evenly in half.

With their job done, they turned towards ... them?

"Oh shit, they're heading for us!" one of the crew shouted.

The crew quickly began to take their station, and the pilot punched the accel.

Only, they didn't move.

"Why aren't we moving, Adria?!" the reporter screamed as she dashed into the corvette's small cockpit.

The pilot, a salarian by the name of Adria, just grunted back. "Ship at full speed!" she snapped at the reporter.

And the reporter looked down at the speedometer and paled. Indeed, the ship was at its max speed, and yet it was not moving.

Adria grunted again. "Some kind of tractor? Gravity well generator? No, they are not affecting each other. Tractor most likely," she ranted quietly as she slowly gave up. "No escape," she finished as she let go of the steering wheel. "At terran mercy, now."

They saw out of the cockpit's windows. From there, they could see their corvette being brought into the terran super-dreadnought like a prey being pulled into the predator's maw. They trembled in fear as their ship was forced to shut down.

 _Knock knock knock_

The pilot sighed. "I'll answer," she muttered, leaving the fearful crew behind to the only door of the corvette.

She stood before it for a second. She wondered if this was where she died. It wasn't too hard to think that the terrans would just kill her, after all.

What she didn't know was that the camera was still rolling, drowned in the powerless, dark corridor of the corvette.

So when the door opened, and Professor Mordin of the Salarian Academy of Science came in to help them out, it was a surprise for everyone.

"I told you to leave, sister," Mordin said quickly. "Come. They have your quarters prepared, but I do not doubt for a second that their duke intends to scold you."

* * *

Adria had been given the full responsibility of the crew by the crew due to her ranking within both the Citadel Central News and as a former STG.

'This was supposed to be my retirement fun job,' she mourned her bad luck.

At least, her older brother was here.

"Really, when you said retirement, I expected a 'retirement.' This was not expected," Mordin said as he led her to ... somewhere. "When I called you and you told me you were in Terminus space, I thought you would have been touring or something, not in a job."

She sniffed. "Not exactly sure why you're on a terran ship."

"Exchange scientist. Been promised insight into terran society. I argued that war was part of society, and thus, they let me on with precaution, of course. Also, act as liaison."

"Comfy job?"

"Hardly. Fun, yes. Easy, no. Terran society is very different from any Council race. Too diverse."

"How diverse?"

"More than a three dozen strong cultures within the entire Terran League."

That stopped Adria short. "T-That's impossible! Expansion into space discourages minor cultures!"

"Terrans value all culture they possess. Make great commitment to see them flourish. Very interesting, but hard to remember all. Their home planet has more than a hundred cultures still active."

"That's insane."

"No, merely love for variety. Terrans love variety."

"We don't?"

"Our variety too limited compared to terrans."

"Seems that is true. They have too much warship variety."

"Should have seen logistic and civilian ships. Too many designs to count outside of military issues."

"...Terrans are powerful, are they not?"

Mordin looked at his sister as they stopped in front of a door.

"Council cannot win, even if total war happens," he said quickly. "Conflict with terrans is out of the question." The door opened. "Don't mess up?"

"Brothe-?"

He pushed her in.

She stood there, shocked.

"Please pardon Professor Mordin. He was supposed to be part of the exchange that is currently discussing war strategy and tactics with few of our historians and lower ranked tacticians," an old terran said from his position in front of the space-viewing window. He turned around. "Captain Daniel Daniels. I would like to say it's nice to meet you, but my first priority is to demand why you were here in this system."

* * *

Ilmensvies stared at the planet that refused to give up.

He had to commend them for their defiance against an unstoppable force. Either their loyalty to this sector's owner was strong or they didn't believe in any of the generous surrender offers that he had given them just three minutes ago.

No matter. He would make this system the example of what was to happen to the Terminus Alliance.

He glanced over his shoulder.

"Wellu."

The Heroic Spirit stiffened.

"I want you to lead the charge down there. Take down anyone that stands in your way. I want them to fear us."

"Yes, sir."

And as everyone watched, she turned around and left the command bridge.

* * *

Denizens of the planet U-4152 III watched as the enemy fleet above them parked in orbit of their planet.

Soon, they were launching hundreds and thousands of dropships filled to the brim with soldiers and machines of war.

But it was not the dropship they needed to worry about.

It was the Orbital Drop Troops, or the ODTs, who came down from the sky with nothing but their armor.

Among them was a blonde haired beauty dropping in with the ODTs. Unlike them, she was wore no armor or even a visor to protect her white eyes from the sharp winds of the planet. In fact, she barely had any clothes on besides a tight tank top and a pair of short jeans that barely reached her knees.

The most prominent thing about her was that where her skin was exposed, whether it was her upper chest, her limbs, or her stomach, there were tattoos everywhere. They held no images to them, only lines and circles. Even then, it made her look imperious and dangerous as they glowed red and white.

"1 minute to inertia negation, boys," she spoke on the shielded headset that she was wearing using prana to act as an adhesive to keep the headset on even as she fell down to the planet at terminal velocity.

Normally, Wellu would not participate in any kind of ground fighting as her primary job was to ensure the safety of the Duke of the Northern Star Archipelago.

But she knew exactly what kind of show was required right here on this day. These Terminus Alliance bastards had invaded her master's planet and killed one of his prized children.

So despite the fact that she was supposed to be guarding the Duke, she had listened to her master's order and had descended down.

It was time for the Nightmare Spectra to rise once more.

* * *

The mercenaries and soldiers on the planet began firing as soon as the dropships got in range. AA turrets fired their MA slugs, hoping to shoot down the terran soldiers before they got to land. Terminus Alliance soldiers were somewhat successful in that regard as their extremely accurate turrets dropped a dropship every minute or so.

"Alright boys, just keep on taking down down!" the commanding officer of the capital city's defensive forces shouted proudly over the comm to his soldiers manning the turrets. He was a salarian who had risen in the ranks of the Warlord Inferno army. By the time that Inferno had died, he had been high enough in the food chain to take over this planet and sign himself up as a Warlord.

It was proving to be his mistake.

He knew the technological superiority of the Terran League, but he was not willing to let go of the control he had on this planet. Oh, he was proud that his turrets were taking down the terran dropships, but that was after the targeted dropship were struck three or four times by the same turret. It was a painstakingly slow process.

He grumbled as his troops got ready to blast off the terran troops within them wherever they landed.

Then he lurched as he lost his footing as something fell behind him.

The ground beneath him cracked and caved in, and he looked over his shoulder as he fell sideways.

It was a terran!

He didn't get to think much more than that when the said terran grabbed the salarian's neck and pulled it off.

* * *

"Negate!" Wellu commanded as the ODTs under her command were less than a kilometer from the planet's surface.

All of the ODTs brought their forearms together to an 'X' in front of them and a transparent blue shield sprung up. Immediately, they slowed down to sub-Mach speed, a speed that they can survive rest of the fall down to the planet.

Wellu, on the other hand, continued on without a shield of her own. She passed by the ODTs like a bullet.

Just as she was about to hit the ground, she flipped upright in midair...

Her magic circuits roared to life. Her tattoos that were glowing red and white changed to blue and gray. With it, a semi-transparent blue flame flashed up like flaming flower petals around her just as her feet touched the concrete ground, and her speed was reduced by 80%.

Even so, the spare speed and the reinforced body of hers was heavy enough to crater the ground around her.

She didn't even stop to admire the view. She lashed out to the nearest enemy she could identify and pulled.

To her surprise, it died right there and then with a small tug of her hands. She wondered if all alien lifeforms were this weak.

After a second, she tossed the salarian she held in her hand aside as ODTs landed around the target area.

"Take out those turrets!" she commanded as she jumped forward to the nearest group of alien soldiers who were just noticing her presence. As they turned their guns to her, Wellu grabbed the nearest soldier -a batarian, if she was right- and with supernatural strength granted to her by reinforcement, she flung him to his comrades.

By then, all of the alien soldiers had taken notice of her presence -and their dead commander- and they fired.

Unlike conventional terran weaponry did not use Mass Effect technology, the tiny slugs of the Mass Effect weaponry held enough force and struck within a small enough surface area to pierce her skin and muscles, but nothing beyond was damaged.

She drew in her breath as soon as they stopped firing.

 _"See thy bloodied hands!"_ she roared as her tattoos changed color once more. This time, it became red and black.

* * *

The Councilors of the Citadel Council watched from a spy camera on the planet of the first fight between the Terminus Alliance and the Terran League. To their surprise, the soldier of the Terran League who had landed first did not look like a soldier. In fact, she looked like a civilian without a single armor on her nor a weapon.

The Councilors would have been fooled to believe this female terran was not a soldier had they not seen how she survived an orbital drop without any form of inertia dampening they could see and would have been fooled to believe that she had no weapons by her lack of visible weaponry had they not seen her hand pull out a salarian's head from his shoulders.

Her tattoos changed colors, and she jumped into a group of Terminus soldiers, but by the time she was finished with them, the rest of the soldiers who had been around their now dead salarian commander were firing upon her.

She blocked her face with her arms, and the Councilors could see the Mass Effect weaponry pierce her skin.

But the terran female remained standing.

Then she allowed her arms down when the Terminus soldiers' weapons overheated and roared something.

"S-Spirits...?" Sparatus muttered as he saw spectral soldiers rise up from the ground all around the terran female.

* * *

Terminus soldiers gawked as they saw a woman, of all things, survive a hail of rifle slugs and come out alive. Even more so when after she shouted, spirits began to rise up from the ground.

"G-Gareth!?" one of the soldiers shouted hysterically, looking at one of the spirits. "It's Gareth! The guy that died two years ago!"

All soldiers then began to scrutinize the spirits, and to their horror, realized that every single one of the spirits were someone they recognized.

* * *

 _"Solemn vows you have made in life shall bring you back to my side,"_ she hissed as even more spectral soldiers of the dead alien soldiers rose up. "Kill them all!" she roared, and the spirits charged forward as one.

* * *

Terminus soldiers began firing, but they saw their slugs slam into their dead comrades as if they were actually there.

One soldier immediately broke rank and ran away.

It proved to be a mistake as he tripped. He looked at his ankle and saw to his horror a ghastly hand that grasped it. The soldier got a rock and began to bash at the spectre, only to bash his ankle instead. He cried out in pain, and in that time, the spectre had risenup from the ground. It grasped the soldier's face with its other hand and pulled the batarian's head off along with its spine.

Another soldier tried to run away even after seeing the first deserter's demise. He ran until he bounced off a spirit. He frantically looked around for his gun but found it only the foot of the spirit. He looked up and his eyes widened.

"B-Brother?" the turian mercenary muttered. The spirit began to move towards him. The mercenary scrambled backward. "B-Brother! It's me, Merius! It's your little brother Merius!" the mercenary spoke hysterically. "P-Please don't hurt me, brother!"

The spirit didn't stop and ran after his living brother.

"S-Stop, sta-!"

It went for the kill and tore out his brother's throat.

This scene repeated for any deserters.

For those who stayed behind, they were swarmed over by spectral soldiers that pinned them down to the ground and tore out their throats. Then they feasted upon the dying and dead aliens in a cannibalistic glee.

* * *

Tevos ran to the nearest trash bin and emptied her stomach of her dinner.

Valern was green with sickness and disgust, but he watched on as cannibal spirits rose up even from the dead bodies. What was worse, this time, was that the spirits that rose up from freshly killed bodies looked as they were left by the first spirits; missing body parts, gutted stomach, and teeth-torn throats.

It was even made more worse as these spirits let out an ear-piercing scream that reminded everyone of the horrors they could not bear to witness.

Valern couldn't take it after that, and ran to the restroom to throw up.

Sparatus was sick to the stomach at the display like Valern, but he also held rage at what the terran had done.

The worship of spirits and ancestors were an integral part of turian spiritual and family life. To pervert the spirits into those cannibalistic demons went beyond horror. It was a perversion of the turian way of life and belief, whether they knew it or not.

Even so, just like Valern, he watched and held in the urge to empty his own stomach.

* * *

Adria was released from the Captain's office a few hours later totally drained of energy. The questioning had gone nowhere close to a true interrogation, but the man's use of "magecraft" that released bursts of light were too traumatizing for her, not when she saw similar lights obliterate a Terminus defense fleet.

The fact that he then congratulated her for not being classified as a spy, because otherwise, she would've had her brain open.

Now, she was being escorted back to her ship. She had been told by Captain "Da-nee-els" that she and the crew of the CCN corvette would have to remain within it until they were able to reach a system with Mass Relay.

Of course, it was once again her brother that escorted her.

"Terrans trust you?"

Mordin shook his head. "Terrans are cautious yet understanding. They let me escort you. I know you, so you won't feel much fear. Also, terrans have their defense mechanism in place all over the corridor. No need for any guards, not when they are more useful on the ground invasion."

"Already?"

"The system's government has already surrendered," Mordin replied quietly as he led his sister into the diplomat's room and turned on the TV.

Instead of a Citadel news team, it was a terran news team who were currently on the ground. When they had arrived here, neither salarians knew. Perhaps the terran news team came with the entire fleet.

 _"-nd the local citizens are being rounded up to hear the duke's speech at the center of this planet's capital city. We at the Gaian New Convention believe that the duke intends to make his point clear. At the same time, many influential persons like Senator Gregory Sal'meth of North America, Earth has expressed concerns for the future of the newly conquered territories and their denizens."_ The screen changed to show a terran with white hair and wrinkles. He stood in the streets where many reporters and journalists had gathered to see. From the way he was dressed to the location, it was clear that this session had been in prompt.

 _"As I was saying,"_ the old Senator, Adria guessed, spoke with a frown. _"I am merely concerned. Due to the nature of this war, I nor anyone of the League's legislative body can interfere as we wish as we had done in the Awakening. However, I have been a friend of the duke, and I know from experience that while the duke is enraged beyond anything I have seen before, there is no way that he will bend sentient rights by enslaving the new citizens of the League or anything close to that._

 _"What I am concerned is which planet he intends to blow up, because blowing up a planet is ... well, I don't really need to say it, do I? As righteous his anger is, blowing up a planet is a terrible prospect. Hundreds of species of plants, animals, not to mention the livelihood of the denizens, and the local solar system's gravitational wells would be destroyed. After the destruction of the planet, I have no doubt that the solar system which it resided in will change forever."_

The screen shifted back to the plaza where the terran news team had been.

 _"As you have heard, there will be irrecoverable changes. Those changes are far away, however. What is about to happen now is the duke's speech and what his intention to the new citizens of the League is as the Senator Sel'meth put it. This is Jennifer_ Boheansson _signing out."_

Mordin turned the TV off with a wave of his hand.

"I suspect that it will be an hour or so before everyone on the planet is brought to the plaza, then we can see what will happen," he said. "Forever change our view of the terrans."

Then there was a ping, and Mordin raised his left arm where his omnitool was. He pressed a few digital buttons before he read the message that he received.

"Interesting offer," he muttered. "Adria, terran leader Otto Tohsaka-Bahk asks if you and the CCN crew wants to remain aboard this ship. Exclusive interview with some of the terrans as well as sole CCN or any other news crew to be stationed with them for the duration of the war."

Well. That was an offer she couldn't just refuse.

* * *

 **For Identity of Wellu, look under Heroic Spirits on Chapter 4, the informative chapter**


	8. Chapter 8

Ilmensvies von Einzbern stood before a crowd of aliens in the planet's capital. He stood before them in front of the "palace" that the previous warlord had built up for his residence in the middle of the capital.

Unlike the white-and-blue-themed capital of Ilyasviel, this planet - U-4152 according to the Citadel Council archive - was monotone of grey. Its local fauna and flora had been ravaged in favor of replacing it with grey iron buildings and roads. The planet itself was suffering from uneven surface support due to magma draining mining techniques employed.

In fact, this planet was dying.

Ilmensvies was a man who talked to planets, thanks to one of the magecraft he himself created just for that purpose. He heard the planet's cry for help, but due to its solitary nature in this solar system outside of its star, it had been suffering alone. Unlike Earth, this planet had never gained the heights of power that Gaia once possessed. In fact, the total sum of mana that this planet could generate was in the only billions of units compared to near infinite supply that Gaia possessed.

"Don't worry," he whispered to himself. "I'm here to help."

He looked down below to the crowd of xeno's gathered before him. There were dozens of millions more out there on the planet, working on its factories, but not everyone could be called to hear his words personally today.

So the million before him would have to do.

He placed a single ring in front of his mouth.

This ring was a mystic code similar to a megaphone.

"Today!" he spoke, and his voice thundered inside the palace square. "You have witnessed the power of the House of Einzbern. We faced your fleet that would have kept you safe from any others in the Citadel Council. We crushed it without so much as suffering casualties and went on to conquer this planet. We are at war with your sovereign power, the ones who call themselves 'Terminus Alliance.'

"We did not start this war, but nor are we going to allow our citizens to be hunted to be slaves like the rest of the Citadel space do. We are in this war because it is the right thing to do!

"More than half of this planet's denizens live in slavery! Is it not right for the strong to come and free them? Does responsibility not come with power?

"Perhaps if Terminus Alliance kept to themselves, we would not have interfered, but they did not! So we will spread what we believe what is right so that our future generations will not suffer the unjust slaughter we have experienced!"

* * *

Aria T'Loak quickly reassessed her position in the war.

Her space station of Omega was the de facto capital of the Terminus Alliance, but no one had come to bolster the station's defenses.

She had 40 cruisers and 2 dreadnoughts in her possession, but if a single terran dreadnought appeared by her station, both her fleet and her space station was doomed.

If the terrans decided to take her space station, she would hold out for maybe seven days. She had, after all, more than a million mercenaries inside the space station.

But so what?

What if she held for seven days?

She knew her allies and enemies. None of her fellow warlords were going to help her. They all saw the first and the second battle against the "Einzberns."

She shuddered.

Einzbern.

The name made her shiver. The old terran was the one responsible for cobbling the invasion fleet together, but what he had brought already outclassed and outnumbered Terminus' available manpower and spaceships.

...

She knew what she had to do.

* * *

"One of the warlords want to surrender?" Ilmensvies asked.

It had been three days since the fleet of the Three Warring States had occupied and conquered U-4152 in his name. All slaves on the planet had been liberated. Those in need of medical needs were sent back to the League space as the planet itself lacked large enough medical facilities. His internal affairs agents were getting the slaves their citizenship of the Terran league and giving them jobs.

In a matter of hours after the invasion, the populace of the planet had cheered for Ilmensvies. Apparently, life under the warlord was chaffing at best and terrible at the worst.

And now, one of the warlords wanted to speak with him.

"Her name is Aria T'Loak," his secretary in front of him stated. "Warlord of Omega, she controls of the Omega Space Station, which operates as Terminus Alliance's unofficial capital due to its proximity to both the heartlands of the Alliance and the Citadel space. Trade is abundant there, and she rules supreme. According to what few data we were able to recover from former Warlord Inferno's database, she was one of the few warlords who voted against attacking us. She was, unfortunately, outvoted."

Ilmensvies thought about what he just heard.

This Aria T'Loak was ... smart, he assumed. She didn't waste her time and opened up negotiations. On top of that, she was at least neutral to the terrans, if her vote to not raid his League and people were anything to go by. He couldn't call her a terran-friendly ruler, but neither was she hostile.

If she was willing to submit to him, then he saw no reason to get rid of her.

"Very well, I will meet with her. But she will come to us. It is, after all, surrender of a queen to another king."

"I'll send the missive to her. Shall I add any other demands from you, sire?"

The duke thought about it for a while.

"No, but alert the fleet. As soon as she signs the treaty to become a vassal of mine, I want at least fifteen battleships, a dreadnought, and a hundred frigates to jump to this ... Omega of hers to guard it."

"Yes, sir."

When his secretary left the room along with others, Ilmensvies went back to staring out of the window.

The invasion of the Terminus Alliance was going smoothly.

As soon as the takeover of planet U-4152 had finished, the fleets of other Warring States had gone out to claim their territory. While they could claim only small portions due to the prior agreement they made before their participation, they were going to take the most rich planets they could.

Ilmensvies didn't care.

This was a war of revenge for him. A few planets he wouldn't be getting was not something he was going to fret over.

But another purpose had been added on top of his revenge.

Liberation.

Merely walking on this planet had been a sickening experience. The planet had been so ravaged by outworlders that if one were to humanize her, the one they call Planet U-4152, people would only see a beaten and dying child who had just been raped to near death.

Of course, what would these filthy xenos know? They knew nothing about the universe. They proclaimed themselves the center of this galaxy's power, yet they didn't understand the very basics of the very world they walk on.

For the entire duration -and even now!- that Ilmen had walked upon the planet, he had heard the cries of a dying child. He soothed her as much as he could, but even the od and prana generated by one soul was not enough to cure a planet of its sickness. Of its scars. Of its defilement.

What did these xenos know?

Nothing. They knew nothing.

It made him wonder, though. Didn't they have their own Alaya or Gaia? Did the planets not fight back when their children tried to kill them?

He would have to find out, one way or another.

"Sir."

It was another secretary. This one had been tasked with reorganizing the administrative structure of U-4152's inept government.

"Yes?"

"It was just as you've warned us. We've found a group of xeno magi. They have holed themselves up underground one of the residential areas. Fortunately, no one has been injured or killed, but they are holding three of our soldiers as hostages."

Ilmensvies frowned. "Give them an ultimatum: surrender and be treated humanely or not. I don't have time to deal with them. If not, then alert the White Knights to drag them."

"Yes, sir." And that secretary left as well.

* * *

On the ground, Wellu grumbled. Her Master had dictated that once the planet was subjugated, so was to not raise anymore of her soldiers. This severely limited her combat capabilities as she was -and she knew- a support.

So she was stuck outside of the place where the damned alien magi had holed themselves up.

She sat on the ground, waiting for her Master's special operatives.

White Knights of Ilyasviel, they called themselves.

They were crazy psycho's as far as she was concerned. Of course, none of them were truly psycho's, mentally retarded, or just plain stupid. White Knights was a prestigious knightly order that only few could hope to enter.

She called them crazy because of how they acted.

"AGENT BLUE INCOMIN-!"

WA-BAM!

She facepalmed without even looking backward.

There was a short scuffle before another snap of a salute rang from behind her.

"Agent Blue reporting in for duty, ma'am!"

Wellu ignored the odd looks her soldiers were giving the said agent before she stood up and turned around. "Specialization?"

Agent Blue was covered in armor from head to toe. On the surface, he looked like a fantasy medieval heroic knight complete with white cape. All he needed was a horse and a lance.

Oh wait, he had the latter.

Beneath the surface, however, and beneath that quirk and tipsy first impression, Wellu knew fully well that White Knights of Ilyasviel were monsters. They were magi who had given up on research to instead serve the Duke. Each and every single one of them were renowned fighters or researchers that not many would seek to face in open battlefield.

When the knight in front of her stiffened and his tone changed, she knew he was indeed one of them. Especially after she heard his response.

"Infiltration, assassination, black ops, mass demolition, and interrogation."

Such specialization was not the first of the White Knights of Ilyasviel she encountered, but the soldiers around her definitely felt uneasy with Agent Blue's response.

"Alright then. We found a group of xeno magi. I don't know how or why they kept themselves hidden from the rest of their world after reaching into space, but here it is. I want you to drag them all out. Leave at least one alive for interrogation, preferably one that looks important."

The reason why she hated the White Knights? Why she was so distasteful of them?

"As you command, Mistress."

Wellu grimaced.

They all fucking called her 'Mistress.'

With a sigh, she stepped out of the way.

Agent Blue, who was really white due to his armor and cape, strode in front of the building cast off from reality with the xeno brand of bounded field.

He was excited.

It had been too long since he had indulged himself in massacre and death.

He pulled the gloves off of his hands. On his left was a circle. It held a triangle, a circle within the triangle, and a dot within that circle. On his right was also a circle. It also had a triangle, but this one pointed down. Within the triangle was a crescent moon.

He clapped his hands together and touched the bounded field.

It immediately collapsed.

He heard the alien within the building begin to shout.

"Your cacophony of panic ... " he said as he walked meaningfully towards the door and blasted it apart with a swipe of his left hand. Then, to every human's surprise, he jumped in without regard for himself.

There was a second of silence before explosions riddled the building. Screams rung out and there was an inhumane laughter.

"Let me hear you scream! Give me my lullaby!"

Wellu shuddered.

Yeah, those White Knights are psychos alright.

Then with a burst, the second floor crashed down as the metals bent and burst outwards from the explosions.

And Agent Blue jumped out with two aliens, each in his hands, being dragged out by their collars.

He dumped them on the ground and saluted. "Job complete, Mistress!"

"Yeah," she muttered. "Good job, but I wonder why the second floor collapsed when the magi were supposed to be underground."

"So I did a good job?"

"...Yes."

"Yeeeeee~!"

Wellu shuddered. "Someone take these guys away for T&I! Preferably, I want some Legilimens!"

* * *

 **Well, I suppose I haven't updated this in a long time.**

 **No excuses. Didn't feel like doing it. I had Re:Gamer going for me. But I still love the idea of this story. So update is still continuing, but it'll be very sporadic and long in between.**


	9. Chapter 9

When Algeo came to, he was in a dark room.

Immediately, he remembered what happened.

The crash and the roar of thunder and he and his men fought against alien mages.

Alien mages.

Algeo shuddered.

What he and dead men had faced not something normal. The mage that killed them moved like lightning, tore through bodies like bone shredders, and demolished opposition like mythical creatures of old.

And now, he was captured.

He pulled at his hands, and found that they were bound. He grumbled.

"Hello."

Algeo froze as the voice accompanied a niggling feeling in his head.

"You are ... Algeo Bo-id'khal, son of Bohjal Id'khal. I see. A decorated soldier of the Batarian Hegemony who retired after secretly inheriting the family library on magic. Fou-"

Algeo tuned out the alien as he realized a horrifying truth.

The alien with him in this darkness was reading his mind!

His struggle renewed. He grunted and roared as the unseen alien interrogator just kept on rolling out the details of his life.

And then it was over.

They knew everything about him.

He gave up too.

"Algeo Bo-id'khal, my superior wants to talk with you."

He snarled. "Why should I _talk_ with bastards like you-?!"

"Because depending on your answer, or lack thereof, you may experience some ... motivation."

Algeo clamped his mouth shut.

'Well, shit,' he thought to himself.

"Indeed."

"Stop reading my mind!" he roared at the still-unseen interrogator.

"...Do you really want me to stop?"

"What?"

"I asked if you really want me to stop? Because right now, the only thing keeping you from pain is the fact that I'm keeping that pain away for clarity of your mind."

Algeo didn't understand.

"You're already half-dead, Algeo Bo-id'khal. Our agent has been less than ... gentle with you when he chose you to be taken as prisoner. I'm sure you remember?"

He did remember.

"So what, if I don't answer your question-"

"I'll simply stop holding back on your pain and I'll make sure you stay alive."

"Until I bleed out?"

Even if he couldn't see his interrogator, he knew that son of a bitch was smiling.

"Even after you bleed out and your body fails. We have ways to contain and torment souls. As a mage, you are well aware of the existence of souls, yes?"

He did know. It was actually his little brother's main area of expertise. That chatterbox would never shut up about his work at dinner.

He nodded, knowing that the interrogator would know that he did.

"Oh good," the voice of the interrogator giggled. "I hate seeing things suffer. Anyway, boss is here."

"Your boss...?"

A pause.

"Yes, my boss. One of the Great Servants serving the von Einzberns, Wellu von Sellarius."

* * *

When Wellu entered the room, she frowned.

"What's he doing?" she asked the interrogator, a man dressed in black and grey version of the Einzbern Fleet uniform.

The interrogator saluted as she entered the room, and dropped it when the question was answered.

"I've been extracting information regarding their magic, culture, and information regarding Prisoner #17, ma'am," he replied.

"And?"

"...Ma'am?"

"What are they like?"

The interrogator blinked before he straightened his back. "From the surface, it seems that their magical population is closer to historical 20th century Wizarding Britain. They are tied to the small kingdom of Alondia, which exists as a single continental nation on Karshann itself under the Batarian Hegemony. Having sworn oaths of fealty, they are required to follow the order of the reigning monarch. However, due to the numerous treaties that the magical Alodians have imposed upon their monarch more than three thousand years, way before the space age of the Batarians in question, the king in question cannot do much but watch.

"On the other hand, the Magical Alodia has been allowed the conquest of other magical -"

"Stop."

"...Ma'am?"

"Write the history lesson for someone else. I'm here for how their magic operates."

"Ah." The interrogator looked sheepish. "Apologies, ma'am. It seems I rambled on."

"Just hurry up."

"Yes, ma'am. From what I understand, their magic is dependent upon their version of our magical cores. So they are closer to wizards rather than us, magi."

She nodded.

"Also, they seem to be the opposite of their mundane counterpart. They are a direct democratic nation whose focus is keeping magic hidden. They aren't arrogant like their mundane parts, and I believe they will open up talks if asked nicely enough."

"Their reaction to us?"

"In one word, worried. They don't know how our magecraft, magic, witchery, and wizardry operates. They have been trying to send agents to get data, and have succeeded in doing so, but from what this man -one of those agent- understands, they can't make heads or tails.

"For one, they never had the presence of a sentient planet suppressing their magic, so they are completely puzzled by that. On the other hand, they completely understand the transfiguration, rituals, and formalcraft that we operate with as there is little to no difference between theirs and ours."

"Huh, fancy that," Wellu commented.

"However, it seems that they are practitioners of what they call the 'esoteric arts,' which summons outer dimensional beings to serve them."

"Summoning?"

"Vastly superior to our own. I couldn't make heads or tails. However, as far as I can tell from this single prisoner, that is so far the only field of magic and magecraft that they have that surpasses ours."

"This prisoner's possibility of joining us?"

"Neal. He has friends and family who he considers too valuable."

Wellu nodded before dismissing the interrogator.

Then she turned to the Batarian, who was still chained up.

"I know you're awake," she said, using the translation spell that most military, diplomatic, and tourist agents knew (something that was considered basic in Northern Star Archipelago).

The Batarian grunted as he pulled his head up straight.

"... So you are Wellu von Sellarius?" he asked, looking over form.

"Eyes up," Wellu grunted.

He did.

"... You know, if you had surrendered, we would have treated you well," she replied.

"I was second in command," he replied with a scowl. "It wasn't my decision."

She scoffed. "Orders are absolute?"

The Batarian scoffed too. "We aren't like those turians. No, the leader thought you guys weren't strong enough to break through our defenses. I disagreed."

"It seems you're smart."

"I know I am."

"Cheeky too."

"..."

Wellu shrugged. "Well, I suppose I'll give you a choice. You can work for me briefly before the Northern Star Archipelago establishes first contact with the Magical Alodia" the batarian twitched. "-Or I can space you."

He growled. "You treat your pr-"

"I did ask for a surrender or to be put to death, batarian," she snapped at him. "Your leader chose, so you pay the price."

He scowled, but didn't comment.

"...You realize this is a declaration of war upon Magical Alodia?"

"Can a nation declare war on another when they aren't even aware of the other's existence?"

"You lie!" the Batarian growled. "How else could you know about the base you destroyed?!"

"We didn't."

"...What?"

"We simply scanned for magical signatures upon the planet that did not match the signatures of our operators on the U-4152, and broke down on it. The War Charter of the Northern Star Archipelago dictates that any magical enclave upon a conquered planet are given a single chance to surrender. Did you think I gave you and your friends a single chance to surrender out of the goodness of my heart? If I had my way, I would've just blasted you and your kin from space, not caring about the collateral damage."

"You...! You monster!"

Wellu's arm snapped out and grabbed Algeo's neck. Then the arm lit up with red magic circuits.

"Monster? I know I am, Algeo," she hissed. "I am Wellu von Sellarius, the King of Rebels. I have personally slayed more than a million enemies with these bare hands of mine," she growled as her grip tightened, but just barely to give the poor Batarian the feeling of being choked without actually being under such threat. "I have glassed planets in my life, and in my death, I have become one of the guardians of the Northern Star Archipelago!" she hissed.

"I-In death-?!" Despite feeling choked, Algeo couldn't help but question.

Wellu smiled, but in no way was this smile benevolent.

"My master has ordered me to keep you alive, but I only need one excuse to kill you and make you into one of my puppets, Algeo. So give me that reason. Insult me _again_."

He shivered but didn't speak.

She tossed him back, and he tipped over, landing on the floor on his back with the chair he was tied to. He groaned in pain.

"I'll hear your answer when I come back later."

"Wait...!"

She stopped from leaving and stared at the downed batarian.

"Yes?"

"W-Why didn't you just torture me for information?"

She frowned. It reminded him of his primary school teacher when someone asked a stupid question.

"Why go through the trouble of dirtying a room when I can cleanly just take what I need with our interrogators?" Having said her piece, she stood up and left.

* * *

First thing Algeo realized after the human woman left the room was that the first interrogator had lied.

He was in no pain other than what had been delivered _after_ the interrogator left, mainly his current position.

Son of a bitch!

* * *

 **-AVA-**  
 **F/DS**

* * *

While Wellu had been conversing with the batarian, the interrogator was busy typing out what he had learned.

There was a lot that he had to report, so he divided up the report itself into several parts.

First, it would have the difference between mundane and magical batarian cultures and nations. Second, his report would state the military affairs of the latter he learned of from the prisoner. Third, it would also state the likelihood of Magical Alodia publicly opening up relations with the Terran League and the Northern Star Archipelago.

And lastly, he would add in the report regarding the magical nature of these xeno mages.

After two intense hours of typing, correcting, and summarizing the data, he finalized the report and moved it to a secure datapad for the duke's eyes only.

With that, he waited for the von Sellarius to return so he could hand her the datapad.

He would probably take the rest of the day off with the exception of providing the prisoners under his care the medical and sustenance they need.

* * *

Wellu took the proffered datapad, tucked it under her arm, and walked out of the brigs.

Once outside of the brigs, a section of an entire floor in the middle layers within the dreadnought _Archangel's Plight_ , Duke Ilmensvies von Einzbern's personal flagship, the very same ship that had taken apart the U-4152 defensive fleet by itself.

As she made her way to the duke's personal quarters, she pulled the datapad out from underneath her arm and read its contents. Even with the numerous elevators and platform transporters, it would take her a good ten minutes to reach her destination.

She skipped the first three parts of the report; those were information that concerned her Master.

The only thing she cared about was the mysteries of the Magical Alodia.

The first thing she noticed was that Alodians (as the interrogator had written in this report) had no concept about planetary interactions with magical beings. They were completely unaware of the non-organic, deity-class TYPEs that exist in each planet they walk on.

Wellu did not find much concern with this information.

The second bullet point about the Alodians was that they had no concept about true magic nor did they differentiate magic from magecraft. This has led to the Alodians having different terms for what she and the other humans would call "magecraft" -they just called it magic.

Again, nothing she was concerned with.

Then finally, she reached the part she was most concerned about.

Summoning, the only field that the Alodians had apparently surpassed the humans.

Alodians separated Summoning into several "ranks."

The lowest, the Din, was the summoning of semi-sentient elementals. Again, term issues. The "elementals" that the Alodians dealt with were closer to spirits in control of a certain aspect of nature that was born directly from the planet itself. However, these elementals, as far as the interrogator back in the brig was concerned, was that they were completely different beings from the elementals of Gaia -the latter could crush cities with a wave of their hand, but the former could barely topple a single well built house.

This was also the only rank that did not touch the extradimensional summons.

The second lowest, the Jhak'dhal, was the summoning of "lesser" extradimensional creatures. These creatures varied in size and shape, but they were all non-sentient beasts. They just didn't follow certain rules that the rest of the universe was subjected to. An example in the report was that of an extradimensional creature called "Hollows." Speculated to be mostly spiritual in nature, they were "souls" who could not pass on to Akasha. Unable to pass on, they stewed in their thoughts and became corrupted. The result was a Hollow, a masked spirit that lived on instinct and completely without sentient and sapience.

The third rank -the middle rank-, Manci, was the summoning of "average" dimensional creatures.

Unfortunately, from here on, the actual data was vague due to the prisoner not knowing much about it in the first place. So with the source unable to give them a better outlook aside from what little examples they had in the prisoner's brain, the report petered off.

* * *

"Master."

Ilmensvies glanced over his shoulder. "Wellu," he greeted. "How is our prisoner?"

"Angry."

"Expected," the duke replied. "Information regarding their people?"

Wellu walked up to the man, who had his back to her behind the marble desk, and placed the datapad there.

When Ilmensvies swirled around, she grimaced.

When she saw her Master use Heaven's Feel along with his Starlight Paradise magecraft to blow up the entire opposition in the counterattack, she knew that there were going to be consequences for her Master.

While this was not well known, the Heaven's Feel was not as "perfect" as most people and most magi thought it to be, despite being a True Magic.

It was after all, a glorified unlimited battery. Nothing more, nothing less.

That was how her Master always talked about his True Magic whenever he got the chance to do so in private.

'I'm a bloody battery. Literally,' he often said.

Starlight Paradise, however, was the cause of what she saw.

The magecraft in question was something that didn't use thaumaturgy engraved into reality around the magus, but a magecraft that imposed temporarily upon the world.

A magecraft that was completely different from thaumaturgy associated magecraft like alchemy. As such, it also required different methodology. Unlike alchemy, projection, and jewelcraft where a magus' body became the conduit for "tangible resources" -in the form of mana, prana, and od- to be funneled to enact a mystery, Starlight Paradise demanded that the magus' body become the conduit for additional "resources."

Now, unlike other magecraft, Starlight Paradise did allow for "intangible resource" to be used.

Her Master had chosen "mental calculation" as his resource during his youth.

Unfortunately, that was the extent that she understood about her Master's magecraft.

Its unfortunate side effect, however, was something she knew well.

She took in the migraine induced bloodshot eyes, the clenching of jaw muscles to prevent himself from groaning in pain, and the burning of nerves that she knew had happened underneath her Master's frail exterior.

Such was the price for his magecraft.

By choosing mental calculation as his intangible resource to enact his mysteries on top of the necessary tangible resources of od and prana, her Mater's nervous system overheats itself every time he uses Starlight Paradise.

During his youth, none of this would have bothered her tough Master. He would shrug off the effects within hours because of how fit and young his body was. However, time took its tool upon her Master...

"Don't look so sad, Wellu. At least none of my people had to die fighting a useless naval battle," he chided as he took up the datapad.

She frowned but did so.

As much of a "cold, heartless bitch" that others saw her as, she was without a doubt someone who loved her family. Don't get her wrong, she was selfish to the depths of hell, but her family was always a second after herself.

To her, her Master Ilmensvies von Einzbern was a stepfather who had rescued her from the cold, lonely Throne of Heroes. Oh, when she was alive, she had met the man before as rivals, but in her death, she had found solace in his care. To her, he was a member of her family, and thus someone she cared deeply for.

So to see her Master suffering so that a few people whose names and faces she didn't even know would not die, it made her frustrated.

"So what is your opinion of these people?"

She snapped out of her thoughts and feelings at her Master's call.

"... In simple words, I would call them diplomatic, individualistic, materialistic, and spiritualistic."

"Spiritualisitc?"

She smirked. "It takes some belief to work with magic."

He nodded sagely in agreement. "Continue, please."

After a pause and gathering of her thoughts, she spoke.

* * *

While the planet of U-4152 and its system was quiet, the rest of the galaxy was not.

Within the Terran League, there were calls for a "crusade" against "xeno scum" who invaded their land. Politically, their stance was one born out of long hatred of all things that weren't "terran," which included mostly the protoss within the Protoss Coalition.

The Citadel Council was busy preparing themselves. After seeing the devastating might of a single dreadnought -which they mistook for an elite Terran League dreadnought-, the people, not the races, of the Citadel Council were split in three ways.

The first faction wanted nothing to do with the Terran League. "No Contact, No Trouble" was their motto. While they were okay with maintaining diplomatic ties, they were adamant about severing all possible trade, immigration, and other treaties barring a non-aggression pact.

The second faction wanted to become vassals of the Terran League. "If you can't beat them, join them."

The third faction represented the most radical of the Citadel races; they wanted to destroy the Terran League by any means possible so that they represent no threat. (Un?)fortunately, they were also the smallest and least favored of the factions. Citadel races may have some lapses of intelligence, but they were by no means stupid.

But perhaps the most active of all activities in the galaxy was the invasion of the Three Warring States into the rest of the Terminus Alliance territories and states.

Already, the "western" front was at a total collapse as each battle favored the technologically, numerically, and tactically superior terrans. Planets and space stations conquered by the terrans were wiped clean of unwanted elements such as pirates, slavery, and literal filth. Aria T'Loak, one of the warlords of the Terminus Alliance, had capitulated to the Einzberns, essentially making her a vassal of the Northern Star Archipelago. This had prompted an attack from the rest of the warlords for the betrayal, but the attack was soon swept aside by the terran counterattack which was led by Otto Tohsaka, Ilmensvies' grandson.

As all of this happened to the galaxy, Magical Alodia remained strangely silent.


End file.
